GARDEN 
OF  SURVIVAL 

ALGERNON  BLACKWGOD 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 


THE  GARDEN  OF 
SURVIVAL 

BY 

ALGERNON  BLACKWOOD 

AUTHOR  OF 
"JTOIUS  IE  VALLON,"  "THE  WAVE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYRIGHT,  1018, 
BY  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


Tint  Printing  ..........  *«"*•  '•» 

Second  Printing  ....  December,  1918 


o 


Printed  in  tile  United  States  of  America 


TO 

S.  A.  B. 

(JUNE  16,  1917) 

AND   TO 

ANOTHER 


THE  GARDEN  OF 
SURVIVAL 


IT  will  surprise  and  at  the  same  time 
possibly  amuse  you  to  know  that  I  had 
the  instinct  to  tell  what  follows  to  a 
Priest,  and  might  have  done  so  had  not 
the  Man  of  the  World  in  me  whispered 
that  from  professional  Believers  I 
should  get  little  sympathy,  and  probably 
less  credence  still.  For  to  have  my  ex- 
perience disbelieved,  or  attributed  to 
hallucination,  would  be  intolerable  to 
me.  Psychical  investigators,  I  am  told, 
prefer  a  Medium  who  takes  no  cash 
recompense  for  his  performance,  a 
Healer  who  gives  of  his  strange  powers 
without  reward.  There  are,  however, 
natural-born  priests  who  yet  wear  no 

en 


•  .     .       »r  •.••-«•-.       .      .     -    . 

.'  •  V  •  • 

THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

uniform  other  than  upon  their  face  and 
heart,  but  since  I  know  of  none  I  fall 
back  upon  yourself,  my  other  half,  for 
in  writing  this  adventure  to  you  I  almost 
feel  that  I  am  writing  it  to  myself. 

The  desire  for  confession  is  upon  me : 
this  thing  must  out.  It  is  a  story, 
though  an  unfLiished  one.  I  mention 
this  at  once  lest,  frightened  by  the 
thickness  of  the  many  pages,  you  lay 
them  aside  against  another  time,  and 
so  perhaps  neglect  them  altogether.  A 
story,  however,  will  invite  your  interest, 
and  when  I  add  that  it  is  true,  I  feel 
that  you  will  bring  sympathy  to  that 
interest:  these  together,  I  hope,  may 
win  your  attention,  and  hold  it,  until 
you  shall  have  read  the  final  word. 

That  I  should  use  this  form  in  telling 
it  will  offend  your  literary  taste — you 
who  have  made  your  name  both  as 
critic  and  creative  writer — for  you  said 
once,  I  remember,  that  to  tell  a  story 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

in  epistolary  form  is  a  subterfuge,  an 
attempt  to  evade  the  difficult  matters 
of  construction  and  delineation  of  char- 
acter. My  story,  however,  is  so  slight, 
so  subtle,  so  delicately  intimate  too, 
that  a  letter  to  some  one  in  closest 
sympathy  with  myself  seems  the  only 
form  that  offers. 

It  is,  as  I  said,  a  confession,  but  a 
yery  dear  confession:  I  burn  to  tell  it 
honestly,  yet  know  not  how.  To  with- 
hold it  from  you  would  be  to  admit  a 
secretiveness  that  our  relationship  has 
never  known — out  it  must,  and  to  you. 
I  may,  perhaps,  borrow — who  can  limit 
the  sharing  powers  of  twin  brothers  like 
ourselves  ?— some  of  the  skill  your  own 
work  spills  so  prodigally,  crumbs  from 
your  writing-table,  so  to  speak;  and 
you  will  forgive  the  robbery,  if  success- 
ful, as  you  will  accept  the  love  behind 
the  confession  as  your  due. 

Now,  listen,  please!  For  this  is  the 
[3] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

point:  that,  although  my  wife  is  dead 
these  dozen  years  and  more — I  have 
found  reunion  and  I  love.  Explanation 
of  this  must  follow  as  best  it  may.  So, 
please  mark  the  point  which  for  the 
sake  of  emphasis  I  venture  to  repeat: 
that  I  know  reunion  and  I  love. 

With  the  jealous  prerogative  of  the 
twin,  you  objected  to  that  marriage, 
though  I  knew  that  it  deprived  you  of 
no  jot  of  my  affection,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  prompted  by  pity  only, 
leaving  the  soul  in  me  wholly  disen- 
gaged.   Marion,  by  her  steady  refusal 
to  accept  my  honest  friendship,  by  her 
persistent  admiration  of  me,  as  also  by 
her  loveliness,  her  youth,  her  singing, 
persuaded  me  somehow  finally  that  I 
needed  her.    The  cry  of  the  flesh,  which 
her  beauty  stimulated  and  her  singing 
increased  most  strangely,  seemed  raised 
into  a  burning  desire  that  I  mistook  at 
the  moment  for  the  true  desire  of  the 

w 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

soul.  Yet,  actually,  the  soul  in  me  re- 
mained aloof,  a  spectator,  and  one, 
moreover,  of  a  distinctly  lukewarm  kind. 
It  was  very  curious.  On  looking 
back,  I  can  hardly  understand  it  even 
now;  there  seemed  some  special  power, 
some  special  undiscovered  tie  between 
us  that  led  me  on  and  yet  deceived  me, 
It  was  especially  evident  in  her  singing, 
this  deep  power.  She  sang,  you  re- 
member, to  her  own  accompaniment  on 
the  harp,  and  her  method,  though  so 
simple  it  seemed  almost  childish,  was 
at  the  same  time  charged  with  a  great 
melancholy  that  always  moved  me  most 
profoundly.  The  sound  of  her  small, 
plaintive  voice,  the  sight  of  her  slender 
fingers  that  plucked  the  strings  in  some 
delicate  fashion  native  to  herself,  the 
tiny  foot  that  pressed  the  pedal — all 
these,  with  her  dark  searching  eyes  fixed 
penetratingly  upon  my  own  while  she 
sang  of  love  and  love's  endearments, 
[5] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

combined  in  a  single  stroke  of  very 
puissant  and  seductive  kind.  Passions 
in  me  awoke,  so  deep,  so  ardent,  so 
imperious,  that  I  conceived  them  as 
born  of  the  need  of  one  soul  for  another. 
I  attributed  their  power  to  genuine  love. 
The  following  reactions,  when  my  soul 
held  up  a  finger  and  bade  me  listen 
to  her  still,  small  warnings,  grew  less 
positive  and  of  ever  less  duration.  The 
frontier  between  physical  and  spiritual 
passion  is  perilously  narrow,  perhaps. 
My  judgment,  at  any  rate,  became 
insecure,  then  floundered  hopelessly. 
The  sound  of  the  harp-strings  and  of 
Marion's  voice  could  overwhelm  its 
balance  instantly. 

Mistaking,  perhaps,  my  lukewarm- 
ness  for  restraint,  she  led  me  at  last 
to  the  altar  you  described  as  one  of 
sacrifice.  And  your  instinct,  more 
piercing  than  my  own,  proved  only 
too  correct:  that  which  I  held  for  love 
[6] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

declared  itself  as  pity  only,  the  soft, 
affectionate  pity  of  a  weakish  man  in 
whom  the  flesh  cried  loudly,  the  pity 
of  a  man  who  would  be  untrue  to 
himself  rather  than  pain  so  sweet  a 
girl  by  rejecting  the  one  great  offering 
life  placed  within  her  gift.  She  per- 
suaded me  so  cunningly  that  I  per- 
suaded myself,  yet  was  not  aware  I 
did  so  until  afterwards.  I  married  her 
because  in  some  manner  I  felt,  but 
never  could  explain,  that  she  had  need 
of  me. 

And,  at  the  wedding,  I  remember 
two  things  vividly:  the  expression  of 
wondering  resignation  on  your  face, 
and  upon  hers — chiefly  in  the  eyes  and 
in  the  odd  lines  about  the  mouth — 
the  air  of  subtle  triumph  that  she 
wore:  that  she  had  captured  me  for 
her  very  own  at  last,  and  yet — for 
there  was  this  singular  hint  in  her 
attitude  and  behaviour — that  she  had 

m 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

taken  me,  because  she  had  this  curious 
deep  need  of  me. 

This  sharply  moving  touch  was 
graven  into  me,  increasing  the  tender- 
ness of  my  pity,  subsequently,  a  thous- 
andfold. The  necessity  lay  in  her 
very  soul.  She  gave  to  me  all  she  had 
to  give,  and  in  so  doing  she  tried  to 
satisfy  some  hunger  of  her  being  that 
lay  beyond  my  comprehension  or  in- 
terpretation. For,  note  this — she  gave 
herself  into  my  keeping,  I  remember, 
with  a  sigh. 

It  seems  as  of  yesterday  the  actual 
moment  when,  urged  by  my  vehement 
desires,  I  made  her  consent  to  be  my 
wife;  I  remember,  too,  the  doubt,  the 
shame,  the  hesitation  that  made  them- 
selves felt  in  me  before  the  climax 
when  her  beauty  overpowered  me, 
sweeping  reflection  utterly  away.  I 
can  hear  to-day  the  sigh,  half  of  satis- 
faction, yet  half,  it  seemed,  of  pain, 
[8] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

with  which  she  sank  into  my  arms  at 
last,  as  though  her  victory  brought 
intense  relief,  yet  was  not  wholly 
gained  in  the  way  that  she  had  wanted. 
Her  physical  beauty,  perhaps,  was  the 
last  weapon  she  had  wished  to  use 
for  my  enslavement;  she  knew  quite 
surely  that  the  appeal  to  what  was 
highest  in  me  had  not  succeeded.  .  .  . 

The  party  in  our  mother's  house 
that  week  in  July  included  yourself; 
there  is  no  need  for  me  to  remind  you 
of  its  various  members,  nor  of  the 
strong  attraction  Marion,  then  a  girl 
of  twenty-five,  exercised  upon  the  men 
belonging  to  it.  Nor  have  you  for- 
gotten, I  feel  sure,  the  adroit  way  in 
which  she  contrived  so  often  to  find 
herself  alone  with  me,  both  in  the 
house  and  out  of  it,  even  to  the  point 
of  sometimes  placing  me  in  a  quasi- 
false  position.  That  she  tempted  me 
is,  perhaps,  an  overstatement,  though 
[9] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  she  availed  herself  of  every 
legitimate  use  of  feminine  magic  to 
entrap  me  is  certainly  the  truth.  Op- 
portunities of  marriage,  it  was  notori- 
ous, had  been  frequently  given  to  her, 
and  she  had  as  frequently  declined 
them;  she  was  older  than  her  years; 
to  inexperience  she  certainly  had  no 
claim:  and  from  the  very  first  it  was 
clear  to  me — if  conceited,  I  cannot 
pretend  that  I  was  also  blind — that 
flirtation  was  not  her  object  and  that 
marriage  was*  Yet  it  was  marriage 
with  a  purpose  that  she  desired,  and 
that  purpose  had  to  do,  I  felt,  with 
sacrifice.  She  burned  to  give  her 
very  best,  her  all,  and  for  my  highest 
welfare.  It  was  in  this  sense,  I  got 
the  impression  strangely,  that  she  had 
need  of  me. 

The  battle  semed,  at  first,  uneven, 
since,  as  a  woman,  she  did  not  posi- 
tively attract  me.    I  was  first  amused 
[10] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

at  her  endeavours  and  her  skill;  but 
respect  for  her  as  a  redoubtable  antag- 
onist soon  followed.  This  respect, 
doubtless,  was  the  first  blood  she  drew 
from  me,  since  it  gained  my  attention 
and  fixed  my  mind  upon  her  presence. 
From  that  moment  she  entered  my 
consciousness  as  a  woman;  when  she 
was  near  me  I  became  more  and  more 
aware  of  her,  and  the  room,  the  picnic, 
the  game  of  tennis  that  included  her 
were  entirely  different  from  such  occa- 
sions when  she  was  absent,  I  became 
self-conscious.  It  was  impossible  to 
ignore  her  as  formerly  had  been  my 
happy  case. 

It  was  then  I  first  knew  how  beau- 
tiful she  was,  and  that  her  beauty 
made  a  certain  difference  to  my  mood. 
The  next  step  may  seem  a  big  one, 
but,  I  believe,  is  very  natural:  her 
physical  beauty  gave  me  definite 
pleasure.  And  the  instant  this  change 
[11] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

occurred  she  was  aware  of  it  The 
curious  fact,  however,  is  that,  although 
aware  of  this  gain  of  power,  she 
made  no  direct  use  of  it  at  first.  She 
did  not  draw  this  potent  weapon  for 
my  undoing;  it  was  ever  with  her, 
but  was  ever  sheathed.  Did  she  dis- 
cern my  weakness,  perhaps,  and  know 
that  the  subtle  power  would  work 
upon  me  most  effectively  if  left  to 
itself?  Did  she,  rich  in  experience, 
deem  that  its  too  direct  use  might 
waken  a  reaction  in  my  better  self? 
I  cannot  say,  I  do  not  know.  .  .  . 
Every  feminine  art  was  at  her  disposal, 
as  every  use  of  magic  pertaining  to 
young  and  comely  womanhood  was 
easily  within  her  reach.  As  you  and 
I  might  express  it  bluntly,  she  knew 
men  thoroughly,  she  knew  every 
trick;  she  drew  me  on,  then  left 
me  abruptly  in  the  wrong,  puzzled, 
foolish,  angry,  only  to  forgive  me  later 
[12] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

with  the  most  enchanting  smile  or 
word  imaginable.  But  never  once 
did  she  deliberately  make  use  of  the 
merciless  weapon  of  her  physical 
beauty  although — perhaps  because — 
she  knew  that  it  was  the  most  power- 
ful in  all  her  armoury. 

For  listen  to  this:  when  at  last  I 
took  her  in  my  arms  with  passion  that 
would  not  be  denied,  she  actually  re- 
sented it.  She  even  sought  to  repel 
me  from  her  touch  that  had  undone 
me.  I  repeat  what  I  said  before:  She 
did  not  wish  to  win  me  in  that  way. 
The  sigh  of  happiness  she  drew  in  that 
moment — I  can  swear  to  it — included 
somewhere,  too,  the  pain  of  bitter  dis- 
appointment. 

The  weapon,  however,  that  she  did 
use  without  hesitation  was  her  singing. 
There  was  nothing  special  either  in  its 
quality  or  skill;  it  was  a  voice  un- 
trained, I  believe,  and  certainly  without 
[13] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

ambition;  her  repertoire  was  limited; 
she  sang  folk-songs  mostly,  the  simple 
love-songs  of  primitive  people,  of 
peasants  and  the  like,  yet  sang  them 
with  such  truth  and  charm,  with  such 
power  and  conviction,  somehow,  that 
I  knew  enchantment  as  I  listened. 
This,  too,  she  instantly  divined,  and 
that  behind  my  compliments  lay  hid  a 
weakness  of  deep  origin  she  could  play 
upon  to  her  sure  advantage.  She  did 
so  without  mercy,  until  gradually  I 
passed  beneath  her  sway. 

I  will  not  now  relate  in  detail  the 
steps  of  my  descent,  or  if  you  like  it 
better,  of  my  capture.  This  is  a  sum- 
mary merely.  So  let  me  say  in  brief 
that  her  singing  to  the  harp  combined 
with  the  revelation  of  her  physical 
beauty  to  lead  me  swiftly  to  the  point 
where  I  ardently  desired  her,  and  that 
in  this  turmoil  of  desire  I  sought 
eagerly  to  find  real  love.  There  were 
[14] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

times  when  I  deceived  myself  most 
admirably;  there  were  times  when  I 
plainly  saw  the  truth.  During  the 
former  I  believed  that  my  happiness 
lay  in  marrying  her,  but  in  the  latter 
I  recognised  that  a  girl  who  meant 
nothing  to  my  better  self  had  grown 
of  a  sudden  painfully  yet  exquisitely 
desirable.  But  even  during  the  ascend- 
ancy of  the  latter  physical  mood,  she 
had  only  to  seat  herself  beside  the  harp 
and  sing,  for  the  former  state  to  usurp 
its  place.  I  watched,  I  listened,  and  I 
yielded.  Her  voice,  aided  by  the  soft 
plucking  of  the  strings,  completed  my 
defeat.  Now,  strangest  of  all,  I  must 
add  one  other  thing,  and  I  will  add  it 
without  comment.  For  though  sure  of 
its  truth,  I  would  not  dwell  upon  it. 
And  it  is  this:  that  in  her  singing,  as 
also  in  her  playing,  in  the  "colour"  of 
her  voice  as  also  in  the  very  attitude 
and  gestures  of  her  figure  as  she  sat 
[15] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

beside  the  instrument,  there  lay,  though 
marvellously  hidden,  something  gross. 
It  woke  a  response  of  something  in 
myself,  hitherto  unrecognized,  that  was 
similarly  gross.  .  .  . 

It  was  in  the  empty  billiard-room 
when  the  climax  came,  a  calm  evening 
of  late  July,  the  dusk  upon  the  lawn, 
and  most  of  the  house-party  already 
gone  upstairs  to  dress  for  dinner.  I 
had  been  standing  beside  the  open 
window  for  some  considerable  time, 
motionless,  and  listening  idly  to  the 
singing  of  a  thrush  or  blackbird  in  the 
shrubberies — when  I  heard  the  faint 
twanging  of  the  harp-strings  in  the 
room  behind  me,  and  turning,  saw  that 
Marion  had  entered  and  was  there 
beside  the  instrument.  At  the  same 
moment  she  saw  me,  rose  from  the  harp 
and  came  forward.  During  the  day  she 
had  kept  me  at  a  distance.  I  was 
hungry  for  her  voice  and  touch;  her 
[16] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

presence  excited  me — and  yet  I  was 
half  afraid. 

"What!  Already  dressed!"  I  ex- 
claimed, anxious  to  avoid  a  talk  a  deuce. 
"I  must  hurry  then,  or  I  shall  be  later 
than  usual." 

I  crossed  the  room  towards  the 
door,  when  she  stopped  me  with  her 
eyes. 

"Do  you  really  mean  to  say  you 
don't  know  the  difference  between  an 
evening  frock  and — and  this,"  she 
answered  lightly,  holding  out  the  skirt 
in  her  fingers  for  me  to  touch.  And 
in  the  voice  was  that  hint  of  a  sensual 
caress  that,  I  admit,  bewildered  both  my 
will  and  judgment.  She  was  very  close 
and  her  fragrance  came  on  me  with 
her  breath,  like  the  perfume  of  the 
summer  garden.  I  touched  the  material 
carelessly;  it  was  of  softest  smooth 
white  serge.  It  seemed  I  touched 

herself  that  lay  beneath  it.     And  at 
[17] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  touch  some  fire  of  lightning  ran 
through  every  vein. 

"How  stupid  of  me,"  I  said  quickly, 
making  to  go  past  her,  "but  it's  white, 
you  see,  and  in  this  dim  light  I " 

"A  man's  idea  of  an  evening  frock 
is  always  white,  I  suppose,  or  black." 
She  laughed  a  little.  "I'm  not  coming 
to  dinner  to-night,"  she  added,  sitting 
down  to  the  harp.  "I've  got  a  head- 
ache and  thought  I  might  soothe  it 
with  a  little  music.  I  didn't  know 
any  one  was  here.  I  thought  I  was 
alone." 

Thus,  deftly,  having  touched  a  chord 
of  pity  in  me,  she  began  to  play;  her 
voice  followed ;  dinner  and  dressing, 
the  house-party  and  my  mother's 
guests,  were  all  forgotten,  I  remember 
that  you  looked  in,  your  eyes  touched 
with  a  suggestive  and  melancholy  smile, 
and  as  quickly  closed  the  door  again. 
But  even  that  little  warning  failed  to 
[18] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

help  me.  I  sat  down  on  the  sofa  facing 
her,  the  world  forgotten.  And,  as  I 
listened  to  her  singing  and  to  the  sweet 
music  of  the  harp,  the  spell,  it  seemed, 
of  some  ancient  beauty  stole  upon  my 
spirit.  The  sound  of  her  soft  voice  re- 
duced my  resistance  to  utter  impo- 
tence. An  aggressive  passion  took  its 
place.  The  desire  for  contact,  physical 
contact,  became  a  vehement  aching 
that  I  scarcely  could  restrain,  and  my 
arms  were  hungry  for  her.  Shame  and 
repugnance  touched  me  faintly  for  a 
moment,  but  at  once  died  away  again. 
I  listened  and  I  watched.  The 
sensuous  beauty  of  her  figure  and  her 
movements,  swathed  in  that  soft  and 
clinging  serge,  troubled  my  judgment; 
it  seemed,  as  I  saw  her  little  foot  upon 
the  pedal,  that  I  felt  with  joy  its  pres- 
sure on  my  heart  and  life.  Something 
gross  and  abandoned  stirred  in  me;  I 
welcomed  her  easy  power  and  delighted 
[19] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

in  it.  I  feasted  my  eyes  and  ears,  the 
blood  rose  feverishly  to  my  head.  She 
did  not  look  at  me,  yet  knew  that  I 
looked  at  her,  and  how.  No  longer 
ashamed,  but  with  a  fiery  pleasure  in 
my  heart,  I  spoke  at  last.  Her  song 
had  ended.  She  softly  brushed  the 
strings,  her  eyes  turned  downwards. 

"Marion,"  I  said,  agitation  making 
my  voice  sound  unfamiliar,  "Marion, 
dear,  I  am  enthralled;  your  voice,  your 
beauty " 

I  found  no  other  words;  my  voice 
stopped  dead;  I  stood  up,  trembling 
in  every  limb.  I  saw  her  in  that  in- 
stant as  a  maid  of  olden  time,  sing- 
ing the  love-songs  of  some  far-off  day 
beside  her  native  instrument,  and  of  a 
voluptuous  beauty  there  was  no  with- 
standing. The  half-light  of  the  dusk 
set  her  in  a  frame  of  terrible  enchant- 
ment. 

And  as  I  spoke  her  name  and  rose, 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

she  also  spoke  my  own,  my  Christian 
name,  and  rose  as  well.  I  saw  her 
move  towards  me.  Upon  her  face,  in 
her  eyes  and  on  her  lips,  was  a  smile 
of  joy  I  had  never  seen  before,  though 
a  smile  of  conquest,  and  of  something 
more  besides  that  I  must  call  truly  by 
its  rightful  name,  a  smile  of  lust.  God  I 
those  movements  beneath  the  clinging 
dress  that  fell  in  lines  of  beauty  to  her 
feet!  Those  little  feet  that  stepped  upon 
my  heart,  upon  my  very  soul.  .  .  . 
For  a  moment  I  loathed  myself. 
The  next,  as  she  touched  me  and  my 
arms  took  her  with  rough  strength 
against  my  breast,  my  repugnance 
vanished,  and  I  was  utterly  undone. 
I  believed  I  loved.  That  which  was 
gross  in  me,  leaping  like  fire  to  claim 
her  glorious  beauty,  met  and  merged 
with  that  similar,  devouring  flame  in 
her;  but  in  the  merging  seemed 
[21] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

cunningly  transformed  into  the  call 
of  soul  to  soul:  I  forgot  the  pity.  .  .  . 
I  kissed  her,  holding  her  to  me  so  fierce- 
ly that  she  scarcely  moved.  I  said  a 
thousand  things.  I  know  not  what  I 
said.  I  loved. 

Then,  suddenly,  she  seemed  to  free 
herself;  she  drew  away;  she  looked 
at  me,  standing  a  moment  just  beyond 
my  reach,  a  strange  smile  on  her  lips 
and  in  her  darkened  eyes  a  nameless 
expression  that  held  both  joy  and  pain. 
For  one  second  I  felt  that  she  repelled 
me,  that  she  resented  my  action  and 
my  words.  Yes,  for  one  brief  second 
she  stood  there,  like  an  angel  set  in 
judgment  over  me,  and  the  next  we 
had  come  together  again,  softly,  gently, 
happily;  I  heard  that  strange,  deep 
sigh,  already  mentioned,  half  of  satis- 
faction, half,  it  seemed,  of  pain,  as  she 
sank  down  into  my  arms  and  found 
relief  in  quiet  sobbing  on  my  breast. 
[22] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

And  pity  then  returned.  I  felt  un- 
sure of  myself  again.  This  was  the 
love  of  the  body  only;  my  soul  was 
silent.  Yet — somehow,  in  some  strange 
hidden  way,  lay  this  ambushed  mean- 
ing— that  she  had  need  of  me,  and  that 
she  offered  her  devotion  and  herself 
in  sacrifice. 


II 


THE  brief  marriage  ran  its  course, 
depleting  rather  than  enriching  me, 
and  I  know  you  realized  before  the 
hurried,  dreadful  end  that  my  tie  with 
yourself  was  strengthened  rather  than 
endangered,  and  that  I  took  from  you 
nothing  that  I  might  give  it  to  her. 
That  death  should  intervene  so  swiftly, 
leaving  her  but  an  interval  of  a  month 
between  the  altar  and  the  grave,  you 
could  foreknow  as  little  as  I  or  she; 
yet  in  that  brief  space  of  time  you 
learned  that  I  had  robbed  you  of 
nothing  that  was  your  precious  due, 
while  she  as  surely  realized  that  the 
amazing  love  she  poured  so  lavishly 
upon  me  woke  no  response — beyond  a 
deep  and  tender  pity,  strangely  deep 
[24] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

and    singularly    tender    I  admit,    but 
assuredly  very  different  from  love. 

Now  this,  I  think,  you  already  know 
and  in  some  measure  understand;  but 
what  you  cannot  know — since  it  is  a 
portion  of  her  secret,  of  that  ambushed 
meaning,  as  I  termed  it,  given  to  me 
when  she  lay  dying — is  the  pathetic 
truth  that  her  discovery  wrought  no 
touch  of  disenchantment  in  her.  I 
think  she  knew  with  shame  that  she 
had  caught  me  with  her  lowest  weapon, 
yet  still  hoped  that  the  highest  in  her 
might  complete  and  elevate  her  victory. 
She  knew,  at  any  rate,  neither  dismay 
nor  disappointment;  of  reproach  there 
was  no  faintest  hint.  She  did  not 
even  once  speak  of  it  directly,  though 
her  fine,  passionate  face  made  me  aware 
of  the  position.  Of  the  usual  human 
reaction,  that  is,  there  was  no  slightest 
trace;  she  neither  chided  nor  implored; 
she  did  not  weep.  The  exact  opposite 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

of  what  I  might  have  expected  took 
place  before  my  very  eyes. 

For  she  turned  and  faced  me,  empty 
as  I  was.  The  soul  in  her,  realizing 
the  truth,  stood  erect  to  meet  the 
misery  of  lonely  pain  that  inevitably 
lay  ahead — in  some  sense  as  though 
she  welcomed  it  already;  and,  strang- 
est of  all,  she  blossomed,  physically  as 
well  as  mentally,  into  a  fuller  revela- 
tion of  gracious  loveliness  than  before, 
sweeter  and  more  exquisite,  indeed, 
than  anything  life  had  yet  shown  to 
me.  Moreover,  having  captured  me, 
she  changed;  the  grossness  I  had  dis- 
cerned, that  which  had  led  me  to  my 
own  undoing,  vanished  completely  as 
though  it  were  transmuted  into  desires 
and  emotions  of  a  loftier  kind.  Some 
purpose,  some  intention,  a  hope  im- 
mensely resolute  shone  out  of  her,  and 
of  such  spiritual  loveliness,  it  seemed 
[36] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

to  me,  that  I  watched  it  in  a  kind  of 
dumb  amazement. 

I  watched  it — unaware  at  first  of  my 
own  shame,  emptied  of  any  emotion 
whatsoever,  I  think,  but  that  of  a  star- 
tled worship  before  the  grandeur  of  her 
generosity.  It  seemed  she  listened 
breathlessly  for  the  beating  of  my 
heart,  and  hearing  none,  resolved  that 
she  would  pour  her  own  life  into  it, 
regardless  of  pain,  of  loss,  of  sacrifice, 
that  she  might  make  it  live.  She  un- 
dertook her  mission,  that  is  to  say, 
and  this  mission,  in  some  mysterious 
way,  and  according  to  some  code  of 
conduct  undivined  by  me,  yet  passion- 
ately honoured,  was  to  give — regard- 
less of  herself  or  of  response.  I  caught 
myself  sometimes  thinking  of  a  child 
who  would  instinctively  undo  some 
earlier  grievous  wrong.  She  loved  me 
marvellously. 

I  know  not  how  to  describe  to  you 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

the  lavish  wealth  of  selfless  devotion  she 
bathed  me  in  during  the  brief  torturing 
and  unfulfilled  period  before  the  end.  It 
made  me  aware  of  new  depths  and 
heights  in  human  nature.  It  taught  me 
a  new  beauty  that  even  my  finest 
dreams  had  left  unmentioned.  Into  the 
region  that  great  souls  inhabit  a  glimpse 
was  given  me.  My  own  dreadful  weak- 
ness was  laid  bare.  And  an  eternal  hun- 
ger woke  in  me — that  I  might  love. 

That  hunger  remained  unsatisfied. 
I  prayed,  I  yearned,  I  suffered;  I 
could  have  decreed  myself  a  deservedly 
cruel  death;  it  seemed  I  stretched  my 
little  nature  to  unendurable  limits  in 
the  fierce  hope  that  the  Gift  of  the 
Gods  might  be  bestowed  upon  me, 
and  that  her  divine  emotion  might 
waken  a  response  within  my  leaden 
soul.  But  all  in  vain.  My  attitude, 
in  spite  of  every  prayer,  of  every  effort, 
remained  no  more  than  a  searching 
[28] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

and  unavailing  pity,  but  a  pity  that 
held  no  seed  of  a  m©re  positive  emotion, 
least  of  all,  of  love.  The  heart  in  me 
lay  unredeemed;  it  knew  ashamed  and 
very  tender  gratitude;  but  it  did  not 
beat  for  her.  I  could  not  love. 

I  have  told  you  bluntly,  frankly,  of 
my  physical  feelings  towards  Marion 
and  her  beauty.  It  is  a  confession 
that  I  give  into  my  own  safe  keeping. 
I  think,  perhaps,  that  you,  though  cast 
in  a  finer  mould,  may  not  despise  them 
utterly,  nor  too  contemptuously  mis- 
interpret them.  The  legend  that  twins 
may  share  a  single  soul  has  always 
seemed  to  me  grotesque  and  unpoetic 
nonsense,  a  cruel  and  unnecessary 
notion  too:  a  man  is  sufficiently  im- 
perfect without  suffering  this  further 
subtraction  from  his  potentialities. 
And  yet  it  is  true,  in  our  own  case, 
that  you  have  exclusive  monopoly  of 
the  ethereal  qualities,  while  to  me  are 
[29] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

given  chiefly  the  physical  attributes  of 
the  vigorous  and  healthy  male — the 
animal:  my  six  feet  three,  my  muscular 
system,  my  inartistic  and  pedestrian 
temperament.  Fairly  clean-minded,  I 
hope  I  may  be,  but  beyond  all  ques- 
tion I  am  the  male  animal  incarnate. 
It  was,  indeed,  the  thousand  slaveries 
of  the  senses,  individually  so  negli- 
gible, collectively  so  overwhelming,  that 
forced  me  upon  my  knees  before  her 
physical  loveliness.  I  must  tell  you 
now  that  this  potent  spell,  alternating 
between  fiery  desire  and  the  sincerest 
of  repugnance,  continued  to  operate. 
I  complete  the  confession  by  adding 
briefly,  that  after  marriage  she  resented 
and  repelled  all  my  advances.  A  deep 
sadness  came  upon  her;  she  wept;  and 
I  desisted.  It  was  my  soul  that  she  de- 
sired with  the  fire  of  her  mighty  love, 
and  not  my  body.  .  .  .  And  again,  since 
it  is  to  myself  and  to  you  alone  I  tell  it, 
[30] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  would  add  this  vital  fact:  it  was  this 
"new  beauty  which  my  finest  dreams 
have  left  unmentioned"  that  made  it 
somehow  possible  for  me  to  desist,  both 
against  my  animal  will,  yet  willingly. 

I  have  told  you  that,  when  dying,  she 
revealed  to  me  a  portion  of  her  "se- 
cret." This  portion  of  a  sacred  confi- 
dence lies  so  safe  within  my  everlasting 
pity  that  I  may  share  it  with  you  with- 
out the  remorse  of  a  betrayal.  Full  un- 
derstanding we  need  never  ask;  the  so- 
lution, I  am  convinced,  is  scarcely  ob- 
tainable in  this  world.  The  message, 
however,  was  incomplete  because  the 
breath  that  framed  it  into  broken  words 
failed  suddenly;  the  heart,  so  strangely 
given  into  my  unworthy  keeping, 
stopped  beating  as  you  shall  hear  upon 
the  very  edge  of  full  disclosure.  The 
ambushed  meaning  I  have  hinted  at 
remained — a  hint. 

[81] 


Ill 

THERE  was,  then,  you  will  remember, 
but  an  interval  of  minutes  between  the 
accident  and  the  temporary  recovery 
of  consciousness,  between  that  recovery 
again  and  the  moment  when  the  head 
fell  forward  on  my  knee  and  she  was 
gone.  That  "recovery"  of  conscious- 
ness I  feel  bound  to  question,  as  you 
shall  shortly  hear.  Among  such  curious 
things  I  am  at  sea  admittedly,  yet  I 
must  doubt  for  ever  that  the  eyes 
which  peered  so  strangely  into  mine 
were  those  of  Marion  herself — as  I  had 
always  known  her.  You  will,  at  any 
rate,  allow  the  confession,  and  believe 
it  true,  that  I — did  not  recognize  her 
quite.  Consciousness  there  was,  in- 
dubitably, but  whether  it  was  "recov- 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

ery"  of  consciousness  is  another  matter, 
and  a  problem  that  I  must  for  ever 
question  though  I  cannot  ever  set  it 
confidently  at  rest.  It  almost  seemed 
as  though  a  larger,  grander,  yet  some- 
how a  less  personal,  soul  looked  forth 
through  the  fading  eyes  and  used  the 
troubled  breath. 

In  those  brief  minutes,  at  any  rate, 
the  mind  was  clear  as  day,  the  faculties 
not  only  unobscured,  but  marvellously 
enhanced.  In  the  eyes  at  first  shone 
unveiled  fire;  she  smiled,  gazing  into 
my  own  with  love  and  eager  yearning 
too.  There  was  a  radiance  in  her  face 
I  must  call  glory.  Her  head  was  in 
my  lap  upon  the  bed  of  rugs  we  had 
improvised  inside  the  field:  the  broken 
motor  posed  in  a  monstrous  heap  ten 
yards  away;  and  the  doctor,  summoned 
by  a  passing  stranger,  was  in  the  act 
of  administrating  the  anaesthetic,  so 
that  we  might  bear  her  without  pain 
[33] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

to  the  nearest  hospital — when,  sudden- 
ly, she  held  up  a  warning  finger,  beck- 
oning to  me  that  I  should  listen  closely. 

I  bent  my  head  to  catch  the  words. 
There  was  such  authority  in  the  gesture, 
and  in  the  eyes  an  expression  so  extra- 
ordinarily appealing,  and  yet  so 
touched  with  the  awe  of  a  final  privacy 
beyond  language,  that  the  doctor 
stepped  backwards  on  the  instant,  the 
needle  shaking  in  his  hand — while  I 
bent  down  to  catch  the  whispered  words 
that  at  once  began  to  pass  her  lips. 

The  wind  in  the  poplar  overhead 
mingled  with  the  little  sentences,  as 
though  the  breath  of  the  clear  blue 
sky,  calmly  shining,  was  mingled  with 
her  own. 

But  the  words  I  heard  both  troubled 
and  amazed  me: 

"Help  me!    For  I  am  in  the  dark 
still!"  went  through  me  like  a  sword. 
"And  I  do  not  know  how  long." 
[34] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  took  her  face  in  both  my  hands; 
I  kissed  her.  "You  are  with  friends," 
I  said.  "You  are  safe  with  us,  with 
me — Marion!"  And  I  apparently  tried 
to  put  into  my  smile  the  tenderness 
that  clumsy  words  forswore.  Her 
next  words  shocked  me  inexpressibly: 

"You  laugh,"  she  said,  "but  I- 
she  sighed — "I  weep." 

I  stroked  her  face  and  hair.  No 
words  came  to  me. 

"You  call  me  Marion,"  she  went  on 
in  an  eager  tone  that  surely  belied  her 
pain  and  weakness,  "but  I  do  not 
remember  that.  I  have  forgotten 
names."  Then,  as  I  kissed  her,  I  heard 
her  add  in  the  clearest  whisper  possible, 
as  though  no  cloud  lay  upon  her  mind: 
"Yet  Marion  will  do — if  by  that  you 
know  me  now." 

There  came  a  pause  then,  but  after 
it  such   singular  words   that   I   could 
hardly  believe  I  heard  aright,  although 
[35] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

each  syllable  sank  into  my  brain  as  with 
pointed  steel: 

"You  come  to  me  again  when  I  lie 
dying.  Even  in  the  dark  I  hear — how 
long  I  do  not  know — I  hear  your 
words." 

She  gave  me  suddenly  then  a  most 
piercing  look,  raising  her  face  a  little 
towards  my  own.  I  saw  earnest 
entreaty  in  them.  "Tell  me,"  I  mur- 
mured; "you  are  nearer,  closer  to  me 
than  ever  before.  Tell  me  what  it  is?" 

"Music,"  she  whispered,  "I  want 
music " 

I  knew  not  what  to  answer,  what 
to  say.  Can  you  blame  me  that,  in 
my  troubled,  aching  heart,  I  found  but 
commonplaces?  For  I  thought  of  the 
harp,  or  of  some  stringed  instrument 
that  seemed  part  of  her. 

"You  shall  have  it,"  I  said  gently, 
"and  very  soon.  We  shall  carry  you 
now  into  comfort,  safety.  You  shall 
[36] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

have  no  pain.  Another  moment 
and " 

"Music,"  she  repeated,  interrupting, 
''music  as  of  long  ago." 

It  was  terrible.  I  said  such  stupid 
things.  My  mind  seemed  frozen. 

"I  would  hear  music,"  she  whispered, 
"before  I  go  again." 

"Marion,  you  shall,"  I  stammered. 
"Beethoven,  Schumann, — what  would 
please  you  most?  You  shall  have  all." 

"Yes,  play  to  me.  But  those  names" 
— she  shook  her  head — "I  do  not 
know." 

I  remember  that  my  face  was 
streaming,  my  hands  so  hot  that  her 
head  seemed  more  than  I  could  hold. 
I  shifted  my  knees  so  that  she  might 
lie  more  easily  a  little. 

"God's  music  1"  she  cried  aloud 
with  startling  abruptness;  then,  lower- 
ing her  voice  again  and  smiling  sadly 
as  though  something  came  back  to  her 
[87] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  she  would  fain  forget,  she  added 
slowly,  with  something  of  mournful 
emphasis : 

ffl  was  a  singer  .  .    " 

As  though  a  flash  of  light  had  passed, 
some  inner  darkness  was  cleft  asunder 
in  me.  Some  heaviness  shifted  from 
my  brain.  It  seemed  the  years,  the 
centimes,  turned  over  like  a  wind-blown 
page.  And  out  of  some  hidden  inmost 
part  of  me  involuntary  words  rose  in- 
stantly: 

"You  sang  God's  music  then  .  .  .  t" 

The  strange,  unbidden  sentence 
stirred  her.  Her  head  moved  slightly; 
she  smiled.  Gazing  into  my  eyes  in- 
tently, as  though  to  dispel  a  mist  that 
shrouded  both  our  minds,  she  went  on 
in  a  whisper  that  yet  was  startlingly 
distinct,  though  with  little  pauses  drawn 
out  between  the  phrases: 

"I  was  a  singer  ...  in  the  Temple. 
[38] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  sang — men — into  evil.  You  ...  I 
sang  into  .  .  .  evil." 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  as  a 
spasm  of  inexplicable  pain  passed 
through  my  heart  like  fire,  and  a  sense 
of  haunting  things  whereof  no  conscious 
memory  remained  came  over  me.  The 
scene  about  me  wavered  before  my  eyes 
as  if  it  would  disappear. 

"Yet  you  came  to  me  when  I  lay 
dying  at  the  last,"  I  caught  her  thin 
clear  whisper.  "You  said,  'Turn  to 
God!'" 

The  whisper  died  away.  The  dark- 
ness flowed  back  upon  my  mind  and 
thought.  A  silence  followed.  I  heard 
the  wind  in  the  poplar  overhead.  The 
doctor  moved  impatiently,  coming  a  few 
steps  nearer,  then  turning  away  again. 
I  heard  the  sounds  of  tinkering  with 
metal  that  the  driver  made  ten  yards 
behind  us.  I  turned  angrily  to  make  a 
sign — when  Marion's  low  voice,  again 
[39] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

more  like  the  murmur  of  the  wind  than 
a  living  voice,  rose  into  the  still  evening 
air: 

"I  have  failed.  And  I  shall  try 
again." 

She  gazed  up  at  me  with  that  patient, 
generous  love  that  seemed  inexhaust- 
ible, and  hardly  knowing  what  to  an- 
swer, nor  how  to  comfort  her  in  that  af- 
flicting moment,  I  bent  lower — or,  rath- 
er, she  drew  my  ear  closer  to  her  lips.  I 
think  her  great  desire  just  then  was  to 
utter  her  own  thought  more  fully  before 
she  passed.  Certainly  it  was  no  avowal 
or  consolation  from  myself  she  sought. 

"Your  forgiveness,"  I  heard  dis- 
tinctly, "I  need  your  full  forgiveness." 

It  was  for  me  a  terrible  and  poignant 
moment.  The  emptiness  of  my  pity 
betrayed  itself  too  mercilessly  for  me  to 
bear;  yet,  before  my  bewilderment  en- 
abled me  to  frame  an  answer,  she  went 
on  hurriedly,  though  with  a  faultless 
[40] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

certainty:  the  meaning  to  her  was  clear 
as  day: 

"Born  of  love  .  .  .  the  only  true 
forgiveness.  .  .  ." 

A  film  formed  slowly.  Her  eyes  be- 
gan to  close,  her  breath  died  off  into  a 
sigh ;  she  smiled,  but  her  head  sank  low- 
er with  her  fading  strength.  And  her 
final  words  went  by  me  in  that  sigh: 

"Yet  love  in  you  lies  unawakened 
still  .  .  .  and  I  must  try  again.  .  .  .** 

There  was  one  more  effort,  painful 
with  unexpressed  fulfilment.  A  flicker 
of  awful  yearning  took  her  paling  eyes. 
Life  seemed  to  stammer,  pause,  then 
flush  as  with  this  last  deep  impulse  to 
yield  a  secret  she  discerned  for  the  first 
time  fully,  in  the  very  act  of  passing 
out.  The  face,  with  its  soft  loveli- 
ness, turned  grey  in  death.  Upon  the 
edge  of  a  great  disclosure — she  was 
gone. 

I  remember  that  for  a  space  of  time 
[41] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

there  was  silence  all  about  us.  The 
doctor  still  kept  his  back  to  us,  the 
driver  had  ceased  his  wretched  hammer- 
ing, I  heard  the  wind  in  the  poplar  and 
the  hum  of  insects.  A  bird  sang  loudly 
on  a  branch  above;  it  seemed  miles 
away,  across  an  empty  world.  .  .  . 
Then,  of  a  sudden,  I  became  aware  that 
the  weight  of  the  head  and  shoulders 
had  dreadfully  increased.  I  dared  not 
turn  my  face  lest  I  should  look  upon 
her  whom  I  had  deeply  wronged — the 
forsaken  tenement  of  this  woman  whose 
matchless  love  now  begged  with  her  dy- 
ing breath  for  my  forgiveness! 

A  cowardly  desire  to  lose  conscious- 
ness ran  through  me,  to  forget  myself, 
to  hide  my  shame  with  her  in  death; 
yet,  even  while  this  was  so,  I  sought 
most  desperately  through  the  depths  of 
my  anguished  pity  to  find  some  hint,  if 
only  the  tiniest  seed,  of  love — and 

m 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

found  it  not.  .  .  .  The  rest  belonged  to 
things  unrealized.  .  .  . 

I  remember  a  hand  being  laid  upon 
me.  I  lifted  my  head  which  had  fallen 
close  against  her  cheek.  The  doctor 
stood  beside  me,  his  grave  and  kindly 
face  bent  low.  He  spoke  some  gentle 
words.  I  saw  him  replacing  the  needle 
in  its  little  leathern  case,  unused. 

Marion  was  dead,  her  deep  secret  un- 
disclosed. That  which  she  yearned  to 
tell  me  was  something  which,  in  her 
brief  period  of  devotion,  she  had  lived, 
had  faithfully  acted  out,  yet  herself 
only  dimly  aware  of  why  it  had  to  be. 
The  solution  of  this  problem  of  unre- 
quited love  lay  at  last  within  her  grasp; 
of  a  love  that  only  asked  to  give  of  its 
unquenched  and  unquenchable  store, 
undismayed  by  the  total  absence  of  re- 
sponse. 

She  passed  from  the  world  of  speech 
and  action  with  this  intense  desire  un- 
[43] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

satisfied,  and  at  the  very  moment — as 
with  a  drowning  man  who  sees  his  past 
— when  the  solution  lay  ready  to  her 
hand.  She  saw  clearly,  she  understood, 
she  burned  to  tell  me.  Upon  the  edge 
of  full  disclosure,  she  was  gone,  leaving 
me  alone  with  my  aching  pity  and  with 
my  shame  of  unawakened  love. 

"I    have    failed,    but    I    shall    try 
again.  .  .   " 


[44] 


IV 


THAT,  as  you  know,  took  place  a  dozen 
years  ago  and  more,  when  I  was  thirty- 
two,  and  time,  in  the  interval,  has 
wrought  unexpected  ends  out  of  the 
material  of  my  life.  My  trade  as  a 
soldier  has  led  me  to  an  administrative 
post  in  a  distant  land  where,  apparent- 
ly, I  have  deserved  well  of  my  King  and 
Country,  as  they  say  in  the  obituaries. 
At  any  rate,  the  cryptic  letters  follow- 
ing my  name,  bear  witness  to  some  kind 
of  notoriety  attained. 

You  were  the  first  to  welcome  my 
success,  and  your  congratulations  were 
the  first  I  looked  for,  as  surely  as  they 
were  more  satisfying  than  those  our 
mother  sent.  You  knew  me  better,  it 
seems,  than  she  did.  For  you  expressed 
[45] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

the  surprise  that  I,  too,  felt,  whereas 
mother  assured  me  she  had  "always 
known  you  would  do  well,  my  boy,  and 
you  have  only  got  your  deserts  in  this 
tardy  recognition."  To  her,  of  course, 
even  at  forty-five,  I  was  still  her  "little 
boy."  You,  however,  guessed  shrewdly 
that  Luck  had  played  strong  cards  in 
bringing  me  this  distinction,  and  I  will 
admit  at  once  that  it  was,  indeed,  due  to 
little  born  in  me,  but,  rather,  to  some 
adventitious  aid  that,  curiously,  seemed 
never  lacking  at  the  opportune  moment. 
And  this  adventitious  aid  was  new. 

This  is  the  unvarnished  truth.  A 
mysterious  power  dealt  the  cards  for 
me  with  unfailing  instinct;  a  fortunate 
combination  of  events  placing  in  my 
hands,  precisely  at  the  moment  of  their 
greatest  value,  clear  opportunities  that 
none  but  a  hopeless  blunderer  could 
have  disregarded.  What  men  call 
Chance  operated  in  my  favour  as 
[46] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

though  with  superb  calculation,  lifting 
me  to  this  miniature  pinnacle  I  could 
never  have  reached  by  my  own  skill 
and  judgment. 

So,  at  least,  you  and  I,  knowing  my 
limited  abilities,  consent  to  attribute  my 
success  to  luck,  to  chance,  to  fate,  or  to 
any  other  name  for  the  destiny  that  has 
placed  me  on  a  height  my  talent  never 
could  have  reached  alone.  You,  and  I, 
too,  for  that  matter,  are  as  happy  over 
the  result  as  our  mother  is;  only  you 
and  I  are  surprised,  because  we  judge 
it,  with  some  humour,  out  of  greater 
knowledge.  More — you,  like  myself, 
are  a  little  puzzled,  I  think.  We  ask 
together,  if  truth  were  told :  Whose  was 
the  unerring,  guiding  hand? 

Amid  this  uncertainty  I  give  you  now 
another  curious  item,  about  which  you 
have,  of  course,  been  uninformed.  For 
none  could  have  detected  it  but  myself : 
namely,  that  apart  from  these  oppor- 
"  [47] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

tunities  chance  set  upon  my  path,  an 
impulse  outside  myself — and  an  im- 
pulse that  was  new — drove  me  to  make 
use  of  them.  Sometimes  even  against 
my  personal  inclination,  a  power 
urged  me  into  decided,  and  it  so 
happened,  always  into  faultless  action. 
Amazed  at  myself,  I  yet  invariably 
obeyed. 

How  to  describe  so  elusive  a  situation 
I  hardly  know,  unless  by  telling  you 
the  simple  truth:  I  felt  that  somebody 
would  be  pleased. 

And,  with  the  years,  I  learned  to 
recognize  this  instinct  that  never  failed 
when  a  choice,  and  therefore  an  ele- 
ment of  doubt,  presented  itself.  Inva- 
riably I  was  pushed  towards  the  right 
direction.  More  singular  still,  there  rose 
in  me  unbidden  at  these  various  junc- 
tures, a  kind  of  inner  attention  which 
bade  me  wait  and  listen  for  the  guiding 
touch.  I  am  not  fanciful,  I  heard  no 
[48] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

voice,  I  was  aware  of  nothing  personal 
by  way  of  guidance  or  assistance;  and 
yet  the  guidance,  the  assistance,  never 
failed,  though  often  I  was  not  conscious 
that  they  had  been  present  until  long 
afterwards.  I  felt,  as  I  said  above,  that 
somebody  would  be  pleased. 

For  it  was  a  consistent,  an  intelligent 
guidance;  operating,  as  it  were,  out  of 
some  completer  survey  of  the  facts  at  a 
given  moment  than  my  own  abilities 
could  possibly  have  compassed;  my 
mediocre  faculties  seemed  gathered 
together  and  perfected — with  the  re- 
sult, in  time,  that  my  "intuition,"  as 
others  called  it,  came  to  be  regarded 
with  a  respect  that  in  some  cases 
amounted  to  half  reverence.  The  ad- 
jective "uncanny"  was  applied  to  me. 
The  natives,  certainly,  were  aware  of 
awe. 

I  made  no  private  use  of  this  unearned 
4istinction ;  there  is  nothing  in  me  of  the 
[49] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

charlatan  that  claimed  mysterious  pow- 
er; but  my  subordinates,  ever  in  grow- 
ing numbers  as  my  promotions  followed, 
held  me  in  greater  respect,  apparently, 
on  that  very  account.  The  natives,  espe- 
cially, as  I  mentioned,  attributed  semi- 
deific  properties  to  my  poor  personality. 
Certainly  my  prestige  increased  out  of 
all  proportion  to  anything  my  talents 
deserved  with  any  show  of  justice. 

I  have  said  that,  so  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned, there  lay  nothing  personal  in 
this  growth  of  divining  intuition.  I 
must  now  qualify  that  a  little.  Nothing 
persuaded  me  that  this  guidance,  so  in- 
falliblei  so  constant,  owed  its  origin  to 
what  men  call  a  being;  I  certainly 
found  no  name  for  it;  exactness,  I 
think,  might  place  its  truest  description 
in  some  such  term  as  energy,  inner  force 
or  inspiration;  yet  I  must  admit  that, 
with  its  steady  repetition,  there  awoke 
in  me  an  attitude  towards  it  that  includ- 
[60] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

ed  somewhere  also  an  emotion.  And  in 
this  emotion,  in  its  quality  and  charac- 
ter, hid  remotely  a  personal  suggestion : 
each  time  it  offered  itself,  that  is,  I  was 
aware  of  a  sharp  quiver  of  sensitive  life 
within  me,  and  of  that  sensation,  extra- 
ordinarily sweet  and  wonderful,  which 
constitutes  a  genuine  thrill. 

I  came  to  look  for  this  "thrill,"  to 
lie  in  wait  with  anticipatory  wonder  for 
its  advent;  and  in  a  sense  this  pause  in 
me,  that  was  both  of  expectancy  and 
hope,  grew  slowly  into  what  I  may 
almost  call  a  habit.  There  was  an 
emptiness  in  my  heart  before  it  came, 
a  sense  of  peace  and  comfort  when  it 
was  accomplished.  The  emptiness  and 
then  the  satisfaction,  as  first  and  last 
conditions,  never  failed,  and  that  they 
took  place  in  my  heart  rather  than  in 
my  mind  I  can  affirm  with  equal  cer- 
tainty. 

The  habit,  thus,  confirmed  itself.  I 
[51] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

admitted  the  power.  Let  me  be  frank — 
I  sought  it,  even  longing  for  it  when 
there  was  no  decision  to  be  made,  no 
guidance  therefore  needed:  I  longed  for 
it  because  of  the  great  sweetness  that  it 
left  within  my  heart.  It  was  when  I 
needed  it,  however,  that  its  effect  was 
most  enduring.  The  method  became 
quite  easy  to  me.  When  a  moment  of 
choice  between  two  courses  of  action 
presented  itself,  I  first  emptied  my 
heart  of  all  personal  inclination,  then, 
pausing  upon  direction,  I  knew — or 
rather  felt — which  course  to  take.  My 
heart  was  filled  and  satisfied  with  an  in- 
tention that  never  wavered.  Some  ener- 
gy that  made  the  choice  for  me  had  been 
poured  in.  I  decided  upon  this  or  that 
line  of  action.  The  Thrill,  always  of  an 
instantaneous  nature,  came  and  went — 
and  somebody  was  pleased. 

Moreover — and  this  will  interest  you 
more   particularly — the   emotion   pro- 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

duced  in  me  was,  so  far  as  positive 
recognition  went,  a  new  emotion;  it 
was,  at  any  rate,  one  that  had  lain  so 
feebly  in  me  hitherto  that  its  announce- 
ment brought  the  savour  of  an  emotion 
before  unrealized.  I  had  known  it 
but  once,  and  that  long  years  before, 
but  the  man's  mind  in  me  increased  and 
added  to  it.  For  it  seemed  a  develop- 
ment of  that  new  perception  which  first 
dawned  upon  me  during  my  brief 
period  of  married  life,  and  had  since 
lain  hidden  in  me,  potential  possi- 
bly, but  inactive  beyond  all  question, 
if  not  wholly  dead.  I  will  now  name 
it  for  you,  and  for  myself,  as 
best  I  may.  It  was  the  Thrill  of 
Beauty. 

I  became,  in  these  moments,  aware  of 
Beauty,  and  to  a  degree,  while  it  lasted, 
approaching  revelation.  Chords,  first 
faintly  struck  long  years  before  when 
my  sense  of  Marion's  forgiveness  and 
[53] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

generosity  stirred  worship  in  me,  but 
chords  that  since  then  had  lain,  appar- 
ently, unresponsive,  were  swept  into 
resonance  again.  Possibly  they  had 
been  vibrating  all  these  intervening 
years,  unknown  to  me,  unrecognized. 
I  cannot  say.  I  only  know  that  here 
was  the  origin  of  the  strange  energy 
that  now  moved  me  to  the  depths. 
Some  new  worship  of  Beauty  that  had 
love  in  it,  of  which,  indeed,  love  was 
the  determining  quality,  awoke  in 
the  profoundest  part  of  me,  and  even 
when  the  "thrill"  had  gone  its  way, 
left  me  hungry  and  yearning  for  its 
repetition.  Here,  then,  is  the  "per- 
sonal" qualification  that  I  mentioned. 
The  yearning  and  the  hunger  were 
related  to  my  deepest  needs.  I  had 
been  empty,  but  I  would  be  filled. 
For  a  passionate  love,  holding  hands 
with  a  faith  and  confidence  as  passion- 
ate as  itself,  poured  flooding  into  me 
[54] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

and  made  this  new  sense  of  beauty  seem 
a  paramount  necessity  of  my  life. 

Will  you  be  patient  now,  if  I  give 
you  a  crude  instance  of  what  I  mean? 
It  is  one  among  many  others,  but  I 
choose  it  because  its  very  crudeness 
makes  my  meaning  clear. 

In  this  fevered  and  stricken  African 
coast,  you  may  know,  there  is  luxuri- 
ance in  every  natural  detail,  an  exuber- 
ance that  is  lavish  to  excess.  Yet 
beauty  lies  somewhat  coyly  hid — as 
though  suffocated  by  over-abundance 
of  crowding  wonder.  I  detect,  indeed, 
almost  a  touch  of  the  monstrous  in  it 
all,  a  super-expression,  as  it  were,  that 
bewilders,  and  occasionally  even  may 
alarm.  Delicacy,  subtlety,  suggestion 
in  any  form,  have  no  part  in  it. 
During  the  five  years  of  my  exile  amid 
this  tropical  extravagance  I  can  recall 
no  single  instance  of  beauty  "hint- 
ing" anywhere.  Nature  seems,  rather, 
[55] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

audaciously  abandoned;  she  is  without 
restraint.  She  shows  her  all,  tells 
everything — she  shouts,  she  never 
whispers.  You  will  understand  me 
when  I  tell  you  that  this  wholesale 
lack  of  reticence  and  modesty  involves 
all  absence  in  the  beholder  of — surprise. 
A  sudden  ravishment  of  the  senses  is 
impossible.  One  never  can  experience 
that  sweet  and  troubling  agitation  to 
which  a  breathless  amazement  properly 
belongs.  You  may  be  stunned;  you 
are  hardly  ever  "thrilled." 

Now,  this  new  sensitiveness  to 
Beauty  I  have  mentioned  has  opened 
me  to  that  receptiveness  which  is 
aware  of  subtlety  and  owns  to  sharp 
surprise.  The  thrill  is  of  its  very 
essence.  It  is  unexpected.  Out  of  the 
welter  of  prolific  detail  Nature 
here  glories  in,  a  delicate  hint  of  won- 
der and  surprise  comes  stealing.  The 
change,  of  course,  is  in  myself,  not 
[56] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

otherwise.  And  on  the  particular 
"crude"  occasion  I  will  briefly  men- 
tion, it  reached  me  from  the  most  obvi- 
ous and  banal  of  conditions — the  night 
sky  and  the  moon. 

Here,  then,  is  how  it  happened: 
There  had  arisen  a  situation  of  grave 
difficulty  among  the  natives  of  my  Pro- 
vince, and  the  need  for  taking  a  strong, 
authoritative  line  was  paramount.  The 
reports  of  my  subordinates  from  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  country  pointed  to  very 
vigorous  action  of  a  repressing,  even  of 
a  punitive,  description.  It  was  not,  in 
itself,  a  complicated  situation,  and  no 
Governor,  who  was  soldier  too,  need 
have  hesitated  for  an  instant.  The 
various  Stations,  indeed,  anticipating 
the  usual  course  of  action  indicated  by 
precedent,  had  automatically  gone  to 
their  posts,  prepared  for  the  "official 
instructions"  it  was  known  that  I 
should  send,  wondering  impatiently  (as 
[67] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  learned  afterwards)  at  the  slight  de- 
lay. For  delay  there  was,  though  of 
a  few  hours  only;  and  this  delay  was 
caused  by  my  uncomfortable  new  habit 
— pausing  for  the  guidance  and  the 
"thrill."  Intuition,  waiting  upon  the 
thrill  of  Beauty  that  guided  it,  at  first 
lay  inactive. 

My  behaviour  seemed  scarcely  of 
the  orthodox,  official  kind,  soldierly 
least  of  all.  There  was  uneasiness,  there 
was  cursing,  probably;  there  were 
certainly  remarks  not  complimentary. 
Prompt,  decisive  action  was  the  obvious 
and  only  course  .  .  .  while  I  sat  quiet- 
ly in  the  Headquarters  Bungalow,  a 
sensitive  youth  again,  a  dreamer,  a  poet, 
hungry  for  the  inspiration  of  Beauty 
that  the  gorgeous  tropical  night  con- 
cealed with  her  excess  of  smothering 
abundance. 

This  incongruity  between  my  pro- 
cedure and  the  time-honoured  methods 
[58] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

of  "strong"  Governors  must  have 
seemed  exasperating  to  those  who 
waited,  respecfful,  but  with  nerves  on 
edge,  in  the  canvassed  and  tented 
regions  behind  the  Headquarters  clear- 
ing. Indeed,  the  Foreign  Office,  could 
it  have  witnessed  my  unpardonable 
hesitation,  might  well  have  dismissed 
me  on  the  spot,  I  think.  For  I  sat 
there,  dreaming  in  my  deck-chair  on 
the  verandah,  smoking  a  cigarette,  safe 
within  my  net  from  the  countless 
poisonous  mosquitoes,  and  listening  to 
the  wind  in  the  palms  that  fringed  the 
heavy  jungle  round  the  building. 

Smoking  quietly,  dreaming,  listen- 
ing, waiting,  I  sat  there  in  this  mood 
of  inner  attention  and  expectancy, 
knowing  that  the  guidance  I  antici- 
pated must  surely  come. 

A  few  clouds  sprawled  in  their  beds 
of  silver  across  the  sky;  the  heat,  the 
perfume,  were,  as  always,  painfully 
[69] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

excessive;  the  moonlight  bathed  the 
huge  trees  and  giant  leaves  with  that 
habitual  extravagance  which  made  it 
seem  ordinary,  almost  cheap  and  won- 
derless.  Very  silent  the  wooden  house 
lay  all  about  me,  there  were  no  foot- 
steps, there  was  no  human  voice.  I 
heard  only  the  wash  of  the  heavy- 
scented  wind  through  the  colossal  foli- 
age that  hardly  stirred,  and  watched,  as 
a  hundred  times  before,  the  immense 
heated  sky,  drenched  in  its  brilliant  and 
intolerable  moonlight.  All  seemed  a 
riot  of  excess,  an  orgy. 

Then,  suddenly,  the  shameless  night 
drew  on  some  exquisite  veil,  as  the 
moon,  between  three-quarters  and  the 
full,  slid  out  of  sight  behind  a  streaky 
cloud.  A  breath,  it  seemed,  of  lighter 
wind  woke  all  the  perfume  of  the  bur- 
dened forest  leaves.  The  shouting 
splendour  hushed ;  there  came  a  whisper 
and,  at  last — a  hint. 
[60] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  watched  with  relief  and  gratitude 
the  momentary  eclipse,  for  in  the  half- 
light  I  was  aware  of  that  sharp  and 
tender  mood  which  was  preparatory  to 
the  thrill.  Slowly  sailing  into  view 
again  from  behind  that  gracious  veil  of 
cloud — 

"The  moon  put  forth  a  little  diamond  peak, 
No  bigger  than  an  unobserved  star, 
Or  tiny  point  of  fairy  scimitar; 
Bright  signal  that  she  only  stooped  to  tie 
Her  silver  sandals,  ere  deliciously 
She  bow'd  into  the  heavens  her  timid  head." 

And  then  it  came.  The  Thrill  stole 
forth  and  touched  me,  passing  like  a 
meteor  through  my  heart,  but  in  that 
lightning  passage,  cleaving  it  open  to 
some  wisdom  that  seemed  most  near  to 
love.  For  power  flowed  in  along  the 
path  that  Beauty  cleft  for  it,  and  with 
the  beauty  came  that  intuitive  guidance 
I  had  waited  for. 

The  inspiration  operated  like  a  flash, 
[61] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

There  was  no  reasoning;  I  was  aware 
immediately  that  another  and  a  better 
way  of  dealing  with  the  situation  was 
given  me. 

I  need  not  weary  you  with  details. 
It  seemed  contrary  to  precedent,  advice, 
against  experience  too,  yet  it  was  the 
right,  the  only  way.  It  threatened,  I 
admit,  to  destroy  the  prestige  so  long 
and  laboriously  established,  since  it 
seemed  a  dangerous  yielding  to  the 
natives  that  must  menace  the  white  life 
everywhere  and  render  trade  in  the  Col- 
ony unsafe.  Yet  I  did  not  hesitate.  .  .  . 
There  was  bustle  at  once  within  that 
Bungalow;  the  orders  went  forth;  I 
saw  the  way  and  chose  it — to  the  dis- 
may, outspoken,  of  every  white  man 
whose  welfare  lay  in  my  official  hands. 

And  the  results,  I  may  tell  you  now 

without  pride,  since,  as  we  both  admit, 

no  credit  attaches  to  myself — the  results 

astonished  the  entire  Colony.  .  .  ,  The 

[62] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Chiefs  came  to  me,  in  due  course,  bring- 
ing fruit  and  flowers  and  presents 
enough  to  bury  all  Headquarters,  and 
with  a  reverential  obedience  that  proved 
the  rising  scotched  to  death — because 
its  subtle  psychological  causes  had  been 
marvellously  understood. 

Full  comprehension,  as  I  mentioned 
earlier  in  this  narrative,  we  cannot  ex- 
pect to  have.  Its  origin,  I  may 
believe,  lies  hid  in  the  nature  of  that 
Beauty  which  is  truth  and  love — in  the 
source  of  our  very  life,  perhaps,  which 
lies  hid  again  with  beauty  very  far 
away.  .  .  .  But  I  may  say  this  much  at 
least:  that  it  seemed,  my  inspired  action 
had  co-operated  with  the  instinctive 
beliefs  of  these  mysterious  tribes — co- 
operated with  their  primitive  and 
ancient  sense  of  Beauty.  It  had,  in- 
explicably to  myself,  fulfilled  their 
sense  of  right,  which  my  subordinates 
[63] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

would  have  outraged.    I  had  acted  with, 
instead  of  against,  them. 

More  I  cannot  tell  you.  You  have 
the  "crude  instance,"  and  you  have 
the  method.  The  instances  multiplied, 
the  method  became  habit.  There  grew 
in  me  this  personal  attitude  towards  an 
impersonal  power  I  hardly  understood, 
and  this  attitude  included  an  emotion 
— love.  With  faith  and  love  I  conse- 
quently obeyed  it.  I  loved  the  source 
of  my  guidance  and  assistance,  though 
I  dared  attach  no  name  to  it.  Simple 
enough  the  matter  might  have  been, 
could  I  have  referred  its  origin  to  some 
name — to  our  mother  or  to  you,  to  my 
Chief  in  London,  to  an  impersonal 
Foreign  Office  that  has  since  honoured 
me  with  money  and  a  complicated 
address  upon  my  envelopes,  or  even, 
by  a  stretch  of  imagination,  to  that 
semi-abstract  portion  of  my  being  some 
men  call  a  Higher  Self. 
[64] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

To  none  of  these,  however,  could  I 
honestly  or  dishonestly  ascribe  it.  Yet, 
as  in  the  case  of  those  congratulatory 
telegrams  from  our  mother  and  your- 
self, I  was  aware — and  this  feeling 
never  failed  with  each  separate  occur- 
rence— aware  that  somebody,  other 
than  ourselves  individually  or  collective- 
ly— was  pleased. 


[65] 


WHAT  I  have  told  you  so  far  concerns 
a  growth  chiefly  of  my  inner  life  that 
was  almost  a  new  birth.  My  outer  life, 
of  event  and  action,  was  sufficiently 
described  in  those  monthly  letters  you 
had  from  me  during  the  ten  years, 
broken  by  three  periods  of  long-leave 
at  home,  I  spent  in  that  sinister  and 
afflicted  land.  This  record,  however, 
deals  principally  with  the  essential  facts 
of  my  life,  the  inner;  the  outer  events 
and  actions  are  of  importance  only  in 
so  far  as  they  interpret  these,  since 
that  which  a  man  feels  and  thinks  alone 
is  real,  and  thought  and  feeling,  of 
course,  precede  all  action. 

I  have  told  you  of  the  Thrill,  of  its 
genesis  and  development;  and  I  chose 
[66] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

an  obvious  and  rather  banal  instance, 
first  of  all  to  make  myself  quite  clear, 
and,  secondly,  because  the  majority 
were  of  so  delicate  a  nature  as  to 
render  their  description  extremely  diffi- 
cult. The  point  is  that  the  emotion  was, 
for  me,  a  new  one.  I  may  honestly 
describe  it  as  a  birth. 

I  must  now  tell  you  that  it  first 
stirred  in  me  some  five  years  after  I 
left  England,  and  that  during  those 
years  I  had  felt  nothing  but  what  most 
other  men  feel  out  here.  Whether  its 
sudden  birth  was  due  to  the  violent 
country,  or  to  some  process  of  gradual 
preparation  that  had  been  going  for- 
ward in  me  secretly  all  that  time,  I  can- 
not tell.  No  proof,  at  any  rate,  offered 
itself  of  either.  It  came  suddenly.  I 
do  know,  however,  that  from  its  first 
occurrence  it  has  strengthened  and 
developed  until  it  has  now  become  a 
[67] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

dominating  influence  of  a  distinctly 
personal  kind. 

My  character  has  been  affected, 
perhaps  improved.  You  have  men- 
tioned on  several  occasions  that  you 
noted  in  my  letters  a  new  tenderness, 
a  new  kindness  towards  my  fellow- 
creatures,  less  of  criticism  and  more 
of  sympathy,  a  new  love;  the  "birth 
of  my  poetic  sense"  you  also  spoke  of 
once;  and  I  myself  have  long  been 
aware  of  a  thousand  fresh  impulses 
towards  charity  and  tolerance  that  had, 
hitherto,  at  any  rate,  lain  inactive  in 
my  being. 

I  need  not  flatter  myself  compla- 
cently, yet  a  change  there  is,  and  it 
may  be  an  improvement.  Whether  big 
or  small,  however,  I  am  sure  of  one 
thing:  I  ascribe  it  entirely  to  this 
sharper  and  more  extended  sensitive- 
ness to  Beauty,  this  new  and  exquisite 
receptiveness  that  has  established  itself 
[68] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

as  a  motive-power  in  my  life.  I  have 
changed  the  poet's  line,  using  prose  of 
course :  There  is  beauty  everywhere  and 
therefore  joy. 

And  I  will  explain  briefly,  too,  how 
it  is  that  this  copybook  maxim  is  now 
for  me  a  practical  reality.  For  at  first, 
with  my  growing  perception,  I  was  dis- 
tressed at  what  seemed  to  me  the  lavish 
waste,  the  reckless,  spendthrift  beauty, 
not  in  nature  merely  but  in  human  na- 
ture, that  passed  unrecognized  and  un- 
acknowledged. The  loss  seemed  so  ex- 
travagant. Not  only  that  a  million 
flowers  waste  their  sweetness  on  the 
desert  air,  but  that  such  prodigal  stores 
of  human  love  and  tenderness  remain 
unemployed,  their  rich  harvest  all  un- 
gathered — because,  misdirected  and 
misunderstood,  they  find  no  receptacle 
into  which  they  may  discharge. 

It  has  now  come  to  me,  though  only 
by  a  slow  and  almost  imperceptible  ad- 
[69] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

vance,  that  these  stores  of  apparently 
unremunerative  beauty,  this  harvest  so 
thickly  sown  about  the  world,  unused, 
ungathered — prepare  yourself,  please, 
for  an  imaginative  leap — are  used,  are 
gathered,  are  employed. 

By  Whom? 

I  can  only  answer:  By  some  one 
who  is  pleased;  and  probably  by  many 
such. 

How,  why,  and  wherefore — I  catch 
your  crowd  of  questions  in  advance — 
we  need  not  seek  exactly  to  discover, 
although  the  answer  of  no  uncertain 
kind,  I  hear  within  the  stillness  of  a 
heart  that  has  learned  to  beat  to  a 
deeper,  sweeter  rhythm  than  before. 

Those  who  loved  beauty  and  lived 
it  in  their  lives,  follow  that  same  ideal 
with  increasing  power  and  passion 
afterwards — and  for  ever. 

The  shutter  of  black  iron  we  call 
Death  hides  the  truth  with  terror  and 
[70] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

resentment;  but  what  if  that  shutter 
were,  after  all,  transparent? 

A  glorious  dream,  I  hear  you  cry. 
Now  listen  to  my  answer.  It  is,  for 
me,  a  definite  assurance  and  belief,  be- 
cause— I  know. 

Long  before  you  have  reached  this 
point  you  will,  I  know,  have  reached 
also  the  conclusion  (with  a  sigh)  that 
I  am  embarked  upon  some  common- 
place experience  of  ghostly  return,  or, 
at  least,  of  posthumous  communication. 
Perhaps  I  wrong  you  here,  but  in  any 
case  I  would  at  once  correct  the  in- 
ference, if  it  has  been  drawn.  You 
remember  our  adventures  with  the 
seance-mongers  years  ago?  ...  I  have 
not  changed  my  view  so  far  as  their 
evidential  value  is  concerned.  Be  sure 
of  that. 

The  dead,  I  am  of  opinion,  do  not 
return;  for,  while  individuals  may  claim 
startling  experiences  that  seem  to  them 
[71] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

of  an  authentic  and  convincing  kind, 
there  has  been  no  instance  that  can  per- 
suade us  all — in  the  sense  that  a 
thunderstorm  convinces  us  all.  Such 
individual  experiences  I  have  always 
likened  to  the  auto-suggestion  of  those 
few  who  believe  the  advertisements  of 
the  hair-restorers — you  will  forgive  the 
unpoetic  simile  for  the  sake  of  its 
exactitude — as  against  the  verdict  of 
the  world  that  a  genuine  discovery  of 
such  a  remedy  would  leave  no  single 
doubter  in  Europe  or  America,  nor  even 
in  the  London  Clubs!  Yet  each  time 
I  read  the  cunning  article  (I  have  less 
hair  than  when  I  ran  away  from  Sand- 
hurst that  exciting  July  night  and  met 
fou  in  the  Strand!),  and  look  upon  the 
picture  of  the  man,  John  Henry  Smith, 
"before  and  after  using,"  I  admit  the 
birth  of  an  unreasonable  belief  that 
there  may  be  something  in  it  after  all. 
[72] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Of  such  indubitable  proof,  however, 
there  is,  alas,  as  yet  no  sign. 

And  so  with  the  other  matter — the 
dead  do  not  "return."  My  story,  there- 
fore, be  comforted,  has  no  individual 
instance  to  record.  It  may,  on  the 
other  hand,  be  held  to  involve  a  thread 
of  what  might  be  called — at  a  stretch 
— posthumous  communication,  yet  a 
thread  so  tenuous  that  the  question  of 
personal  direction  behind  it  need  hardly 
be  considered  at  all.  For  let  me  con- 
fess at  once  that,  the  habit  of  the  "thrill" 
once  established,  I  was  not  long  in  ask- 
ing myself  point  blank  this  definite 
question:  Dared  I  trace  its  origin  to 
my  own  unfruitful  experience  of  some 
years  before? — and,  discovering  no 
shred  of  evidence,  I  found  this  positive 
answer:  Honestly  I  could  not. 

That  "somebody  was  pleased"  each 
time  Beauty  offered  a  wisdom  I  ac- 
cepted, became  an  unanswerable  con- 
[78] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

viction  I  could  not  argue  about;  but 
that  the  guidance — waking  a  responsive 
emotion  in  myself  of  love — was  refer- 
able to  any  particular  name  I  could  not, 
by  any  stretch  of  desire  or  imagination, 
bring  myself  to  believe. 

Marion,  I  must  emphasise,  had  been 
gone  from  me  five  years  at  least  before 
the  new  emotion  gave  the  smallest  hint 
of  its  new  birth;  and  my  feeling,  once 
the  first  keen  shame  and  remorse  sub- 
sided— I  confess  to  the  dishonouring 
truth — was  one  of  looking  back  upon 
a  painful  problem  that  had  found  an 
unexpected  solution.  It  was  chiefly 
relief,  although  a  sad  relief,  I  felt.  .  •  . 
And  with  the  absorbing  work  of  the 
next  following  years  (I  took  up  my 
appointment  within  six  months  of  her 
death)  her  memory,  already  swiftly 
fading,  entered  an  oblivion  whence 
rarely,  and  at  long  intervals  only,  it 
emerged  at  all.  In  the  ordinary  mean- 
[74] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

ing  of  the  phrase,  I  had  forgotten  her. 
,You  will  see,  therefore,  that  there  was 
no  desire  in  me  to  revive  an  unhappy 
memory,  least  of  all  to  establish  any 
fancied  communication  with  one  before 
whose  generous  love  I  had  felt  myself 
dishonoured,  if  not  actually  disgraced. 
Even  the  remorse  and  regret  had  long 
since  failed  to  disturb  my  peace  of 
mind,  causing  me  no  anxiety,  much 
less  pain.  Sic  transit  was  the  epitaph, 
if  any.  Acute  sensation  I  had  none  at 
all.  This,  then,  plainly  argues  against 
the  slightest  predisposition  on  my  part 
to  imagine  that  the  loving  guidance  so 
strangely  given  owned  a  personal  origin 
I  could  recognize.  That  it  involved  a 
"personal  emotion"  is  quite  another 
matter. 

The  more  remarkable,  therefore,  is 

the  statement  truth  now  compels  me  to 

confess  to  you — namely,  that  this  origin 

is  recognizable,  and  that  I  have  traced 

[75] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

in  part  the  name  it  owns  to.  My  next 
sentence  you  divine  already;  you  at 
once  suspect  the  name  I  mean.  I  hear 
you  say  to  yourself  with  a  smile — "So, 
after  all.  .  .  !" 

Please,  wait  a  moment,  and  listen 
closely  now;  for,  in  reply  to  your  sus- 
picion, I  can  give  neither  full  affirma- 
tion or  full  denial.  Yet  an  answer  of 
a  certain  kind  is  ready:  I  have  stated 
my  firm  conviction  that  the  dead  do 
not  return;  I  do  not  modify  it  one  iota; 
but  I  mentioned  a  moment  ago  another 
conviction  that  is  mine  because  I  know. 
So  now  let  me  supplement  these  two 
statements  with  a  third:  the  dead, 
though  they  do  not  return,  are  active; 
and  those  who  lived  beauty  in  their 
lives  are — benevolently  active. 

This  may  prepare  you  for  a  further 
assurance,  yet  one  less  easy  to  express 
intelligibly.     Be  patient  while  I  make 
the  difficult  attempt. 
[76] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

The  origin  of  the  wisdom  that  now 
seeks  to  shape  and  guide  my  life 
through  Beauty  is,  indeed,  not  Marion, 
but  a  power  that  stands  behind  her,  and 
through  which,  with  which,  the  energy 
of  her  being  acts.  It  stood  behind  her 
while  she  lived.  It  stands  behind  not 
only  her,  but  equally  behind  all  those 
peerless,  exquisite  manifestations  of 
self-less  love  that  give  bountifully  of 
tLgk  ^est  mthout  hope  or  expectation 
jf  reward  in  kind.  No  human  love  of 
this  description,  though  it  find  no 
object  to  receive  it,  nor  one  single 
flower  that  "wastes"  its  sweetness  on 
the  desert  air,  but  acknowledges  this 
inexhaustible  and  spendthrift  source. 
Its  evidence  lies  strewn  so  thick,  so 
prodigally,  about  our  world,  that  not 
one  among  us,  whatever  his  surround- 
ings and  conditions,  but  sooner  or  later 
must  encounter  at  least  one  marvellous 
instance  of  its  uplifting  presence.  Some 
"  [771 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

at  once  acknowledge  the  exquisite  flash 
and  are  aware ;  others  remain  blind  and 
deaf,  till  some  experience,  probably  of 
pain,  shall  have  prepared  and  sensitized 
their  receptive  quality.  To  all,  how- 
ever, one  day,  comes  the  magical  appeal. 
As  in  my  own  case,  there  was  appar- 
ently some  kind  of  preparation  before 
I  grew  conscious  of  that  hunger  for 
beauty  which,  awakening  intuition, 
opened  the  heart  to  truth  and  so  to 
wisdom.  It  then  came  softly,  delicately, 
whispering  like  the  dawn,  yet  rich  with 
a  promise  I  could,  at  first,  not  easily 
fathom,  though  as  sure  of  fulfilment  as 
that  promise  of  day  that  steals  upon  the 
world  when  night  is  passing. 

I  have  tried  to  tell  you  something 
of  this  mystery.  I  cannot  add  to  that. 
I  was  lifted,  as  it  were,  towards  some 
region  or  some  state  of  being,  wherein 
I  was  momentarily  aware  of  a  vaster 
outlook  upon  life,  of  a  deeper  insight 
[78] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

into  the  troubles  of  my  fellow-creatures, 
where,  indeed,  there  burst  upon  me  a 
comprehension  of  life's  pains  and  diffi- 
culties so  complete  that  I  may  best 
describe  it  as  that  full  understanding 
which  involves  also  full  forgiveness,  and 
that  sympathy  which  is  love,  God's 
love. 

This  exaltation  passed,  of  course, 
with  the  passing  of  the  thrill  that  made 
it  possible;  it  was  truly  instantaneous; 
a  point  of  ecstasy,  perhaps,  in  some 
category  not  of  time  at  all,  but  of  some 
state  of  consciousness  that  lifted  me 
above,  outside  of,  self.  But  it  was  real, 
as  a  thunderstorm  is  real.  For,  with 
this  glimpse  of  beauty  that  I  call  the 
"thrill,"  I  touched,  for  an  instant  so 
brief  that  it  seemed  timeless  in  the 
sense  of  having  no  duration,  a  pinnacle 
of  joy,  of  vision,  beyond  anything 
attainable  by  desire  or  by  intellect 
alone.  I  stood  aware  of  power,  wisdom, 
[79] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

love;  and  more,  this  power,  wisdom, 
love  were  mine  to  draw  upon  and  use, 
not  in  some  future  heaven,  but  here  and 
now. 

With  this,  moreover,  Marion  was 
involved,  as  warmth  must  ever  be 
involved  with  light.  She  was  a  portion 
of  it,  if  you  will;  she  used  it,  worked 
by  means  of  it,  conveyed  it,  poured  it 
into  me  even  as  light  pours  warmth 
into  the  body.  Does  this  seem  idle 
metaphysics  to  you?  Believe  me,  it 
was  practical  as  bread  and  butter.  I 
do  not  mean  that  her  personality,  as 
an  individual  consciousness,  sought  to 
influence  my  own,  but  that,  owing  to 
the  beauty  of  her  self -less  love,  she  was 
one  with  this  great  power,  benevolently 
active,  a  power  of  which  in  life  she  had 
been  an  exquisite  manifestation.  And 
it  was  her  self-less  love  for  me  that 
opened  the  connecting  channel.  That 
which  was  gross,  perhaps,  in  life,  had 
[80] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

vanished  with  the  gross  elements  of 
the  flesh;  she  was  become  "one  with 
that  loveliness"  which  now  she  "made 
more  lovely."  .  .  .  And  I,  seizing 
upon  an  item  in  this  power,  called  it 
Marion,  since  she  was  my  channel  into 
it.  This  statement  may  exceed  the 
actual  truth.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  the 
nearest  to  the  actual  truth  that,  by  way 
of  description,  I  can  reach.  There  was 
this  personal  attitude  in  myself,  there 
was  this  strong  emotion;  and  it  was  of 
love — the  deepest,  purest  love  life  had 
yet  shown  me. 

It  was  a  considerable  time,  perhaps 
a  year  or  two,  from  the  birth  of  this 
new  emotion  to  the  moment  when  the 
personal  attitude  stole  into  me.  I  had, 
as  you  realize,  no  positive  link  with 
Marion,  but  merely  a  vague,  unhappy 
memory  of  distressing  kind,  a  negative 
memory,  if  I  may  call  it  so — in  the 
main,  a  desire  to  forget.  Indeed,  I 
[81] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

had  forgotten  her,  in  the  sense  that 
into  the  stress  and  strain  of  my  busy, 
active  life  no  emotion  ever  inserted 
itself.  Least  of  all  was  there  the 
faintest  wish  for  her  return,  ghostly  or 
otherwise. 

But  now,  with  the  growth  of  this 
personal  attitude,  there  grew  also  a  cer- 
tain strange  revival  of  memory  that,  for 
the  first  time,  was  not  distasteful  to  me. 
This  was  the  first  change  I  noticed  in 
myself.  I  had  hitherto  banished  any 
tendency  to  such  revival,  and  so  success- 
fully, that  the  brief  days  of  our  married 
life  had  faded  into  the  kind  of  general 
haze  that  covers  early  childhood.  I 
now  welcomed  it.  ... 

Those  few  weeks  had  been  happy 
in  a  negative  way;  no  scene,  no  single 
incident  of  clashing  wills,  of  jarring  dis- 
agreement, had  marred  a  single  hour; 
it  was  only  that  the  gulf  fixed  between 
us  had  grown  more  and  more  painfully 
[82] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

apparent,  and  with  a  consequent  sadness 
of  remorse  in  myself  that  she,  for  her 
part,  never  once  acknowledged.  She 
knew,  as  I  have  told  you,  yet  never 
showed  me  that  she  knew.  In  the 
sense  so  paramountly  precious  to  all 
lovers,  I  can  say  that  no  ill-considered 
word  or  action  threw  any  cloud  upon 
one  single  moment  of  our  mild,  short 
honeymoon.  Regret  of  that  vile  kind 
I  had  been  spared.  My  pity  was  too 
sure  and  deep,  my  tenderness  too  real; 
and  a  passion  of  grave  worship  in  my 
heart  must,  in  any  case,  have  rendered 
impossible  anything  crude  or  petty. 
There  seemed  only,  alas,  this  gulf  we 
could  not  bridge — that,  as  against  my 
tenderest  pity,  her  mighty  love  seemed 
wasted  and  unfruitful. 

Here,  then,  is  the  marvel  and  the 
wonder  in  me   as     I   write:   that  her 
divine  and  generous  love  was  not  un- 
fruitful after  all.    It  was  not  wasted,  it 
[83] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

was  not  unharvested.  Listen  carefully, 
please,  for  I  tell  you  her  secret  that  is 
now  at  last  my  own.  Not  only  was 
this  love  not  unharvested — it  was  re- 
generative, it  was  creative.  It  has  re- 
made my  soul. 

All  true  love,  I  suppose,  is  regenera- 
tive and  creative  in  a  sense:  if  it  wins 
no  response  in  the  few  years  at  its  dis- 
posal, it  wakes  at  least  some  ghost  of  a 
desire  of  response ;  it  makes  its  recipient 
aware  of  emptiness  which,  being  the 
first  shamed  consciousness  of  unworthi- 
ness,  holds,  perhaps,  some  ghostly  seed- 
ling of  desire.  Why  cannot  I  love? — 
stirs  faintly  in  the  heart. 

Again  and  again,  at  any  rate,  this 
bitter  question  had  made  itself  audible 
within  me,  until  the  failure  to  give 
of  my  very  best  in  return  woke  a  posi- 
tive, though  then  a  despairing,  hunger. 
Looking  back  upon  the  short  time  we 
had  together,  and  her  great  offering,  it 
[84] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

is  a  fact  that  I  was  aware  of  this  dim 
hope,  almost  a  belief,  that  one  day  it 
must  come,  that  her  unstinted  passion 
must  eventually  win  a  similarly  great 
response. 

The  death-scene  talk  I  cannot  ex- 
plain. This  is  not  a  novel,  but  a  tran- 
script from  actual  life.  Nor  do  I  care  to 
speculate  whether  those  strange  words 
were  uttered  out  of  some  memory  of  a 
former  life  in  which,  as  a  Singer  in  the 
Temple,  she  had  contracted  a  debt  to- 
wards me  that  she  sought  to  pay — a 
memory  awakened  in  the  act  of  death. 
Was  this  love  a  restitution  dating  from 
some  long-forgotten  platform  where 
our  souls  had  stood  together,  and  had 
she,  untrue  then  to  her  vocation,  used 
her  power  to  undo  the  souls  of  men,  my 
own  among  them?  Were  we,  indeed, 
washed  down  the  ages  by  the  waves  of 
our  own  acts?  Who  knows?  It  was 
sweet  enough  to  think  that  I  had 
[85] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

brought  repentance  to  her  at  the  close 
of  some  forgotten  life,  and  so  earned 
the  benefit  of  love  she  offered.  The 
idea  was  logical  as  well  as  picturesque, 
while  our  strange  mood  of  passion 
needed,  I  think,  an  explanation  that 
did  not  offer.  .  .  . 

As  for  the  memories  that  I  said 
revived  in  me,  and  with  an  absence  now 
of  pain  that  soon  passed  into  actual 
happiness,  I  began  to  recall  in  particu- 
lar two  definite  items.  The  accident,  for 
all  its  dreadful  vividness,  I  seemed  un- 
able to  reconstruct — the  one  touch  of 
horror  and  ugliness  we  had  known  to- 
gether. This  ghastly  thing  was  some- 
how blurred  and  veiled,  so  that  I  re- 
called only  the  sweetness  of  the  autumn 
sky,  the  soft  wind  in  the  poplars,  the 
fresh  grass  whereon  she  lay,  and  the 
dumb  sympathy  of  the  doctor  who  was 
a  stranger  to  us  both.  Of  our  mild  hap- 
piness together — the  drives  by  the  sea, 
[86] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

the  walks,  the  laughter  in  theatres  and 
gatherings  of  friends,  the  talks  and 
reading  over  the  fire  those  chill  Septem- 
ber nights,  the  scenes  in  sunshine  and 
.  .  .  in  the  darkness,  that  might  have 
been  so  sweet  yet  remained  so  barren :  of 
these,  as  a  whole,  no  picture  came  back 
sharply.  But  two  items  in  the  brief 
panorama  revived  in  me  as  though  of 
yesterday — her  singing  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  harp  she  loved,  and  her 
last  sentences  the  wind  took  off  into  the 
evening  sky : 

"I  need  your  forgiveness,  born  of 
love,  but  love  lies  unawakened  in 
you  still,"  and  the  final  phrase  of  all: 
"I  have  failed  .  .  .  but  I  shall  try 
again.  .  .  ." 


[87] 


VI 


I  RETURNED  to  England  with  an  ex- 
pectant hunger  born  of  this  love  of 
beauty  that  was  now  ingrained  in  me. 
I  came  home  with  the  belief  that  my 
yearning  would  be  satisfied  in  a  deeper 
measure;  and  more — that,  somehow,  it 
would  be  justified  and  explained.  I 
may  put  it  plainly,  if  only  to  show 
how  difficult  this  confession  would 
have  been  to  any  one  but  yourself;  it 
sounds  so  visionary  from  a  mere  soldier 
and  man  of  action  such  as  I  am.  For 
my  belief  included  a  singular  dream 
that,  in  the  familiar  scenes  I  now  re- 
visited, some  link,  already  half  estab- 
lished, would  be  strengthened,  and 
might  probably  be  realized,  even 
proved. 

[88] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

In  Africa,  as  you  know,  I  had  been 
set  upon  the  clue  at  home  in  England. 
Among  the  places  and  conditions  where 
this  link  had  been  first  established  in 
the  flesh,  must  surely  come  a  fuller 
revelation.  Beauty,  the  channel  of  my 
inspiration,  but  this  time  the  old  sweet 
English  beauty,  so  intimate,  so  woven 
through  with  the  fresh  wonder  of  ear- 
liest childhood  days,  would  reveal  the 
cause  of  my  first  failure  to  respond,  and 
so,  perhaps,  the  intention  of  those  final 
pathetic  sentences  that  still  haunted  me 
with  their  freight  of  undelivered  mean- 
ing. In  England,  I  believed,  my  "thrill" 
must  bring  authentic  revelation. 

I  came  back,  that  precarious  entity, 
a  successful  man.  I  was  to  be  that 
thing  we  used  to  laugh  about  together 
in  your  Cambridge  days,  a  distinguished 
personality;  I  should  belong  to  the 
breed  of  little  lions.  Yet,  during  the 
long,  tedious  voyage,  I  realized  that  this 
[89] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

held  no  meaning  for  me;  I  did  not  feel 
myself  a  little  lion,  the  idea  only  proved 
that  the  boy  in  me  was  not  yet  dead. 
My  one  desire,  though  inarticulate  until 
this  moment  of  confessing  it,  was  to  re- 
new the  thrills,  and  so  to  gather  from  an 
intenser,  sweeter  beauty  some  measure 
of  greater  understanding  they  seemed 
to  promise.  It  was  a  personal  hope,  a 
personal  desire;  and,  deep  at  the  heart 
of  it,  Memory,  passionate  though  elu- 
sive, flashed  her  strange  signal  of  a  per- 
sonal love.  In  this  dream  that  mocked 
at  time,  this  yearning  that  forgot  the 
intervening  years,  I  nursed  the  impos- 
sible illusion  that,  somehow  or  other,  I 
should  become  aware  of  Marion. 

Now,  I  have  treated  you  in  this 
letter  as  though  you  were  a  woman  who 
reads  a  novel,  for  in  my  first  pages  I 
have  let  you  turn  to  the  end  and  see  that 
the  climax  is  a  happy  one,  lest  you 
should  faint  by  the  way  and  close  my 
[90] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

story  with  a  yawn.  You  need  not  do 
that,  however,  since  you  already  know 
this  in  advance.  You  will  bear  with 
me,  too,  when  I  tell  you  that  my  return 
to  England  was  in  the  nature  of  a  fail- 
ure that,  at  first,  involved  sharpest 
disappointment.  I  was  unaware,  as  a 
whole,  of  the  thrills  I  had  anticipated 
with  such  longing.  The  sweet  picture 
of  English  loveliness  I  had  cherished 
with  sentimental  passion  during  my 
long  exile  hardly  materialized. 

That  I  was  not  a  lion,  but  an 
insignificant  quasi-colonial  adventurer 
among  many  others,  may  have  sprinkled 
acid  upon  my  daily  diet  of  sensation, 
but  you  will  do  me  the  justice  to  believe 
that  this  wounded  vanity  was  the 
smallest  item  in  my  disenchantment. 
Ten  years,  especially  in  primitive,  god- 
forsaken Africa,  is  a  considerable  in- 
terval ;  I  found  the  relationship  between 
[91] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

myself    and    my    beloved    home-land 
changed,  and  in  an  unexpected  way. 

I  was  not  missed  for  one  thing,  I 
had  been  forgotten.  Except  from  our 
mother  and  yourself,  I  had  no  wel- 
come. But,  apart  from  this  immediate 
circle,  and  apart  from  the  deep,  com- 
fortable glow  experienced  at  the  first 
sight  of  the  "old  country,"  I  found 
England  and  the  English  dull,  con- 
ventional, and  uninspired.  There  was 
no  poignancy.  The  habits  and  the 
outlook  stood  precisely  where  I  had 
left  them.  The  English  had  not 
moved.  They  played  golf  as  of  yore, 
they  went  to  the  races  at  the  appointed 
time  and  in  the  appointed  garb,  they 
gave  heavy  dinner-parties,  they  wrote 
letters  to  the  Times,  and  ignored  an 
outside  world  beyond  their  island. 
Their  estimate  of  themselves  and  of 
foreigners  remained  unaltered,  their 
estimate  of  rich  or  influential  neigh- 
[92] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

bours  was  what  it  always  had  been, 
there  were  many  more  motor-cars  and 
a  few  more  peers,  it  was  more  difficult 
than  formerly  to  get  into  a  good  club; 
but  otherwise,  God  bless  them,  they 
were  worthier  than  ever.  The  "dear 
old  country,"  that  which  "out  there" 
we  had  loved  and  venerated,  worked 
and  fought  for,  was  stolid  and  un- 
shaken; the  stream  of  advancing  life 
that  elsewhere  rushed,  had  left  England 
complaisantly  unmoved  and  unrespon- 
sive. 

You  have  no  idea  how  vividly — and 
in  what  curious  minor  details — the 
general  note  of  England  strikes  a 
traveller  returning  after  an  interval 
of  years.  Later,  of  course,  the  single 
impression  is  modified  and  obscured 
by  other  feelings.  I  give  it,  therefore, 
before  it  was  forgotten.  England  had 
not  budged.  Had  it  been  winter 
instead  of  early  spring,  I  might  sum 
[93] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

up  for  you  what  I  mean  in  one  short 
sentence:  I  travelled  to  London  in  a 
third-class  railway  carriage  that  had  no 
heating  apparatus. 

But  to  all  this,  and  with  a  touch  of 
something  akin  to  pride  in  me,  I 
speedily  adjusted  myself.  I  had  been 
exiled,  I  had  come  home.  As  our  old 
nurse,  aged  and  withered,  but  other- 
wise unaltered,  said  to  me  quietly 
by  way  of  greeting:  "Well,  they 
didn't  kill  you,  Master  Richard!"  I 
was,  therefore,  alive.  It  was  for  me, 
the  unimportant  atom,  to  recover  my 
place  in  the  parent  mass.  I  did  so. 
I  was  English.  I  recovered  propor- 
tion. I  wore  the  accustomed  mask; 
I  hid  both  my  person  and  my  new 
emotions,  as  was  obviously  expected 
of  me.  Having  reported  my  insigni- 
ficance to  the  Foreign  Office.  .  .  .  I 
came  down  to  the  Manor  House. 

Yet,  having  changed,  and  knowing 
[94] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  I  had  changed,  I  was  aware  of  a 
cleft  between  me  and  my  native  stock. 
Something  un-English  was  alive  in  me 
and  eager  to  assert  itself.  Another 
essence  in  my  blood  had  quickened,  a 
secret  yearning  that  I  dared  not  men- 
tion to  my  kind,  a  new  hunger  in  my 
heart  that  clamoured  to  be  satisfied, 
yet  remained,  speaking  generally,  un- 
nourished.  Looking  for  beauty  among 
my  surroundings  and  among  my  kith 
and  kin,  I  found  it  not;  there  was  no 
great  Thrill  from  England  or  from 
home.  The  slowness,  the  absence  of 
colour,  imagination,  rhythm,  baffled 
me,  while  the  ugliness  of  common 
things  and  common  usages  afflicted 
my  new  sensitiveness.  Not  that  I  am 
peculiarly  alert  to  beauty,  nor  claim 
superior  perception — I  am  no  artist, 
either  by  virtue  of  vision  or  power  of 
expression— but  that  a  certain  stagnant 
obtuseness,  a  kind  of  sordid  and  con- 
[95] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

servative  veneration  of  the  ugly  that 
the  English  favour,  distressed  and 
even  tortured  me  in  a  way  I  had 
never  realized  formerly.  They  were  so 
proud  to  live  without  perception.  An 
artist  was  a  curiosity,  not  a  leader, 
far  less  a  prophet.  There  was  no 
imagination. 

In  little  things,  as  I  said,  a  change 
was  manifest,  however.  Much  that 
tradition  had  made  lovely  with  the 
perfume  of  many  centuries  I  found 
modernized  until  the  ancient  spirit  had 
entirely  fled,  leaving  a  shell  that  was 
artificial  to  the  point  of  being  false. 
The  sanction  of  olden  time  that  used 
to  haunt  with  beauty  was  deceived  by 
a  mockery  I  found  almost  hideous.  The 
ancient  inns,  for  instance,  adapted  to 
week-end  motor  traffic,  were  pretentious 
and  uncomfortable,  their  "menus"  of  in- 
ferior food  written  elaborately  in 
French.  The  courtliness  had  vanished, 
[96] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

and  the  cost  had  come.  Telephones 
everywhere  not  only  destroyed  privacy, 
but  brought  dismay  into  countless 
gentle  intimacies,  their  nuisance  hardly 
justified  by  their  usefulness.  Life, 
it  seemed,  in  a  frantic  hurry,  had 
been  cheapened,  not  improved;  there 
was  no  real  progress,  but  only  more 
unrest.  England — too  solid  to  go  fast, 
had  made  ungainly  efforts;  but  she 
had  moved  towards  ungraciousness 
where  she  had  moved  at  all;  I  found 
her  a  cross  between  a  museum  and  an 
American  mushroom  town  that  adver- 
tises all  the  modern  comforts  with  a 
violent  insistence  that  is  meant  to  cloak 
their  very  absence. 

This,  my  first  impression,  toned 
down,  of  course,  a  little  later;  but  it 
was  my  first  impression.  The  people, 
however,  even  in  the  countryside, 
seemed  proud  both  of  mushroom  and 
museum,  and  commercial  ugliness, 
[97] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

greedy  and  unashamed,  now  dis- 
torted every  old-world  village.  The 
natives  were  pleased  to  the  point  of 
vanity. 

For  myself,  I  could  not  manage  this 
atrocious  compromise,  and  looking  for 
the  dear  old  England  of  our  boyhood 
days,  I  found  it  not.  The  change, 
of  course,  was  not  in  the  country 
only,  but  in  myself.  The  soul  in  me, 
awakened  to  a  new  standard,  had 
turned  round  to  face  another  way. 

The  Manor  House  was  very  still 
when  I  arrived  from  London — a  late 
May  evening  between  the  sunset  and 
the  dark.  Mother,  as  you  know,  met 
me  at  the  station,  for  they  had  stopped 
the  down-train  by  special  orders,  so 
that  I  stepped  out  upon  the  deserted 
platform  of  the  countryside  quite  alone, 
a  distinguished  man,  with  my  rug  and 
umbrella.  A  strange  footman  touched 
[98] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

his  hat,  an  old,  stooping  porter  stared 
hard  at  me,  then  smiled  vaguely,  while 
the  guard,  eyeing  respectfully  the  indi- 
vidual for  whom  his  train  had  halted, 
waved  his  red  flag,  and  swung  himself 
into  the  disappearing  van  with  the 
approved  manner  we  once  thought 
marvellous.  I  left  the  empty  platform, 
gave  up  my  ticket  to  an  untidy  boy, 
and  crossed  the  gloomy  booking-hall. 
The  mournfulness  of  the  whole  place 
was  depressing.  I  heard  a  blackbird 
whistle  in  a  bush  against  the  signal-box. 
It  seemed  to  scream. 

Mother  I  first  saw,  seated  in  the  big 
barouche.  She  was  leaning  back,  but 
sat  forwards  as  I  came.  She  looked 
into  my  face  across  the  wide  interval 
of  years  now  ended,  and  my  heart  gave 
a  great  boyish  leap,  then  sank  into  still- 
ness again  abruptly.  She  seemed  to 
me  exactly  the  same  as  usual — only  so 
[99] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

much  smaller.  We  embraced  with  a 
kind  of  dignity: 

"So  here  you  are,  my  boy,  at  last," 
I  heard  her  say  in  a  quiet  voice,  and 
as  though  she  had  seen  me  a  month  or 
two  ago,  "and  very,  very  tired,  I'll  be 
bound." 

I  took  my  seat  beside  her.  I  felt 
awkward,  stiff,  self-conscious;  there 
was  disappointment  somewhere.  "Oh, 
I'm  all  right,  mother,  thanks,"  I 
answered.  "But  how  are  youl"  And 
the  next  moment,  it  seemed  to  me,  I 
heard  her  asking  if  I  was  hungry; — 
whereupon,  absurd  as  it  must  sound, 
I  was  aware  of  an  immense  emotion 
that  interfered  with  my  breathing.  It 
broke  up  through  some  repressive  layer 
that  had  apparently  concealed  it,  and 
made  me  feel — well,  had  I  been  thirty- 
five  years  younger,  I  could  have  cried — 
for  pleasure.  Mother,  I  think,  forgot 
those  years  perhaps.  To  her  I  was 
[100] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

still  in  overalls  and  wanted  food.  We 
drove,  then,  in  comparative  silence  the 
four  miles  behind  the  big  pair  of  greys, 
the  only  remark  that  memory  credits 
me  with  being  an  enquiry  about  the 
identity  of  the  coachman  whose  dim 
outline  I  saw  looming  in  the  darkness 
just  above  me.  The  lamplight  showed 
one  shoulder,  one  arm,  one  ear,  the  rest 
concealed;  but  the  way  he  drove 
was,  of  course,  unmistakeable;  slowly, 
more  cautiously,  perhaps,  but  with  the 
same  flourish  of  the  whip,  the  same 
air  of  untold  responsibility  as  ever. 
And,  will  you  believe  it,  my  chief 
memory  of  all  that  scene  of  antici- 
pated tenderness  and  home-emotion 
is  the  few  words  he  gave  in  reply 
to  my  enquiry  and  recognition  when 
at  length  the  cariage  stopped  and  I 
got  out: 

"Well,  Brown,  I'm  glad  to  see  you 
again.    All  well  at  home,  I  hope?"  fol- 
[101] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

lowed  by  something  of  sympathy  about 
his  beloved  horses. 

He  looked  down  sideways  at  me 
from  the  box,  touching  his  cockade 
with  the  long  yellow  whip  in  his 
thick,  gloved  hand.  I  can  hear  his 
warm,  respectful  answer  now;  I  can 
see  the  gleam  of  proud  pleasure  in  his 
eye: 

"Yes,  sir,  thank  you,  Sir  Richard, 
and  glad  to  see  you  back  again,  sir,  and 
with  such  success  upon  you." 

I  moved  back  to  help  our  mother 
out.  I  remember  thinking  how  calm, 
how  solid,  how  characteristically  inarti- 
culate it  all  was.  Did  I  wish  it  other- 
wise? I  think  not.  Only  there  was 
something  in  me  beating  its  wings  im- 
patiently like  a  wild  bird  that  felt  the 
bars  close  round  it.  ...  Mother,  I 
realized,  could  not  have  said  even  what 
the  old  coachman  had  said  to  save  her 
life,  and  I  remember  wondering  what 
[102] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

would  move  her  into  the  expression  of 
natural  joy.  All  that  half -hour,  as  the 
hoofs  echoed  along  the  silence  of  the 
country  road,  and  the  old  familiar 
woods  and  fields  slid  past,  no  sign  of 
deep  emotion  had  escaped  her.  She 
had  asked  if  I  was  hungry.  .  .  . 

And  then  the  smells!  The  sweet, 
faint  garden  smell  in  the  English  twi- 
light:— of  laurels  and  laurestinus,  of 
lilac,  pinks,  and  the  heavy  scent  of 
May,  wall-flowers  and  sweet  williain 
too — these,  with  the  poignant  aroma  of 
the  old  childhood  house,  were  the  back- 
ground of  familiar  loveliness  against 
which  my  subsequent  disillusion  of  the 
homeland  set  itself  in  such  afflicting 
contrast.  I  remember,  as  we  entered 
the  dim  hall,  the  carriage  lamps  fell  on 
the  flowering  horse-chestnut  by  the 
door;  the  bats  were  flitting;  a  big 
white  moth  whirred  softly  against  the 
brilliant  glass  as  though  you  and  I 
[103] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

were  after  it  again  with  nets  and  kill- 
ing-bottles .  .  .  and,  helping  mother 
out,  I  noticed,  besides  her  smallness, 
how  slow  and  aged  her  movements 
were. 

"Mother,  let  me  help  you.  That's 
what  I've  come  home  for,"  I  said,  feel- 
ing for  her  little  hand.  And  she  re- 
plied so  quietly,  so  calmly  it  was  almost 
frigid,  "Thank  you,  dear  boy;  your 
arm,  perhaps — a  moment.  They  are 
so  stupid  about  the  lamps  in  the  hall, 
I've  had  to  speak  so  often.  There, 
now!  It  is  an  awkward  step."  I  felt 
myself  a  giant  beside  her.  She  seemed 
so  tiny  now.  There  was  something 
very  strong  in  her  silence  and  her  calm; 
and  though  a  portion  of  me  liked  it, 
another  portion  resented  it  and  felt 
afraid.  Her  attitude  was  like  a  refusal, 
a  denial,  a  refusal  to  live,  a  denial  of 
life  almost.  A  tinge  of  depression,  not 
far  removed  from  melancholy,  stole 
[104] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

over  my  spirit.     The  change  in  me,  I 
realized  then,  indeed,  was  radical. 

Now,  lest  this  narrative  should  seem 
confused,  you  must  understand  that 
my  disillusions  with  regard  to  England 
were  realized  subsequently,  when  I  had 
moved  about  the  counties,  paid  many 
solid  visits,  and  tasted  the  land  and 
people  in  some  detail.  And  the  dis- 
appointment was  the  keener  owing  to 
the  fact  that  very  soon  after  my  arrival 
in  the  old  Home  Place,  the  "thrill" 
came  to  me  with  a  direct  appeal  that 
was  disconcerting.  For  coming  un- 
expectedly, as  it  did,  in  this  familiar 
scene  where  yet  previously  I  had  never 
known  it,  it  had  the  effect  of  marking 
the  change  in  me  with  a  certainty  from 
which  there  was  no  withdrawal  possible. 
It  standardized  this  change.  The  new 
judgment  was  made  uncompromisingly 
clear;  people  and  places  must  inevitably 
[105] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

stand  or  fall  by  it.  And  the  first  to 
fall — since  the  test  lies  beyond  all  con- 
trol of  affection  or  respect — was  our 
own  dear,  faithful  mother. 

You  share  my  reverence  and  devo- 
tion, so  you  will  feel  no  pain  that  I 
would  dishonour  a  tie  that  is  sacred  to 
us  both  in  the  old  Bible  sense.  But, 
also,  you  know  what  a  sturdy  and 
typical  soul  of  England  she  has  proved 
herself,  and  that  a  sense  of  beauty  is 
not,  alas,  by  any  stretch  of  kindliest 
allowance,  a  national  characteristic. 
Culture  and  knowledge  we  may  fairly 
claim,  no  doubt,  but  the  imaginative 
sense  of  beauty  is  so  rare  among  us 
that  its  possession  is  a  peculiarity  good 
form  would  suppress.  It  is  a  pose,  an 
affectation,  it  is  unmanly — it  is  not 
English.  We  are  too  strong  to  thrill. 
And  that  one  so  near  and  dear  to  me, 
so  honoured  and  so  deeply  loved,  should 
prove  herself  to  my  new  standard  thus 
[106] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

typically  English,  while  it  came  as 
sharpest  pain,  ought  not,  I  suppose, 
to  have  caused  me  the  surprise  it  did. 
It  made  me  aware,  however,  of  the  im- 
portance of  my  new  criterion,  while  at 
the  same  time  aware  of  a  lack  of  sym- 
pathy between  us  that  amounted  to 
disenchantment.  It  was  a  shock,  to 
put  it  plainly.  A  breath  of  solitude, 
of  isolation,  stole  on  me  and,  close  be- 
hind it,  melancholy. 

From  the  smallest  clue  imaginable 
the  truth  came  into  me,  from  a  clue 
so  small,  indeed,  that  you  may  smile 
to  think  I  dared  draw  such  big  deduc- 
tions from  premises  so  insignificant. 
You  will  probably  deny  me  a  sense  of 
humour  even  when  you  hear.  So  let 
me  say  at  once,  before  you  judge  me 
hastily,  that  the  words,  and  the  incident 
which  drew  them  forth,  were  admittedly 
inadequate  to  the  deduction.  Only, 
mark  this,  please — I  drew  no  deduction. 
[107] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Reason  played  no  part.  Cause  and 
effect  were  unrelated.  It  was  simply 
that  the  truth  flashed  into  me.  I  knew. 

What  did  I  know?  Perhaps  that 
the  gulf  between  us  lay  as  wide  as 
that  between  the  earth  and  Sirius; 
perhaps  that  we  were,  individually,  of 
a  kind  so  separate,  so  different,  that 
mutual  understanding  was  impossible; 
perhaps  that  while  she  was  of  To-day 
and  proud  of  it,  I  was  of  another  time, 
another  century,  and  proud  of  that.  I 
cannot  say  precisely.  Her  words,  while 
they  increased  my  sense  of  isolation, 
of  solitude,  of  melancholy,  at  the  same 
time  also  made  me  laugh,  as  assuredly 
they  will  now  make  you  laugh. 

For,  while  she  was  behind  me  in 
the  morning-room,  fingering  some 
letters  on  the  table,  I  stood  six  feet 
away  beside  the  open  window,  listen- 
ing to  the  nightingales — the  English 
nightingales — that  sang  across  the  quiet 
[108] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

garden  in  the  dusk.  The  high-pitched 
clamour  of  the  jungle  choruses  with 
their  monstrous  turmoil,  their  prolific 
detail,  came  back  to  me  in  startling 
contrast.  This  exquisite  and  delicious 
sound  I  now  heard  belonged  still  to 
England.  And  it  had  not  changed. 
"No  hungry  generations  tread  thee 
down  ..."  rose  in  some  forgotten  cor- 
ner of  my  mind,  and  my  yearning  that 
would  be  satisfied  moved  forth  to  catch 
the  notes. 

"Listen,  mother,"  I  said,  turning 
towards  her. 

She  raised  her  head  and  smiled  a 
little  before  reading  the  rest  of  the 
letter  that  she  held. 

"I  only  pray  they  won't  keep  you 
awake,  dear  boy,"  she  answered  gently. 
"They  give  us  very  little  peace,  I'm 
afraid,  just  now." 

Perhaps  she  caught  some  expression 
in  my  face,  for  she  added  a  trifle  more 
[109] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

quickly :  "That's  the  worst  of  the  spring 
— our  English  spring — it  is  so  noisy  1" 
Still  smiling,  she  picked  up  her  letter 
again,  while  I,  though  still  listening  by 
the  window,  heard  only  the  harsh 
scream  and  rattle  of  the  jungle  voices, 
thousands  and  thousands  of  miles  away 
across  the  world. 


[110] 


VII 

IT  was  some  little  time  after  my  arrival, 
as  I  shall  presently  relate,  that  the 
experience  I  call  the  thrill  came  to  me 
in  England — and,  like  all  its  predeces- 
sors, came  through  Nature.  It  came, 
that  is,  through  the  only  apparatus  I 
possessed  as  yet  that  could  respond. 

The  point,  I  think,  is  of  special 
interest;  I  note  it  now,  on  looking  back 
upon  the  series  as  a  whole,  though  at 
the  time  I  did  not  note  it. 

For,  compared  with  yourself  at  any 
rate,  the  aesthetic  side  of  me  is  some- 
what raw;  of  pictures,  sculpture,  music 
I  am  untaught  and  ignorant;  with 
other  Philistines,  I  "know  what  I  like," 
but  nothing  more.  It  is  the  honest  but 
uncultured  point  of  view.  I  am  that 
fill] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

primitive  thing,  the  mere  male  animal. 
It  was  my  love  of  Nature,  therefore, 
that  showed  me  beauty,  since  this  was 
the  only  apparatus  in  my  temperament 
able  to  respond.  Natural,  simple 
things,  as  before,  were  the  channel 
through  which  beauty  appealed  to  thai 
latent  store  of  love  and  wisdom  in  me 
which,  it  almost  seemed,  were  being 
slowly  educated. 

The  talks  and  intimacies  with  our 
mother,  then,  were  largely  over;  the 
re-knitting  of  an  interrupted  relation- 
ship was  fairly  accomplished;  she  had 
asked  her  questions,  and  listened  to  my 
answers.  All  the  dropped  threads  had 
been  picked  up  again,  so  that  a  pattern, 
similar  to  the  one  laid  aside,  now  lay 
spread  more  or  less  comfortably  before 
us.  Outwardly,  things  seemed  much 
as  they  were  when  I  left  home  so 
many  years  ago.  One  might  have 
thought  the  interval  had  been  one  of 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

months,  since  her  attitude  refused  to 
recognize  all  change,  and  change,  qud 
growth,  was  abhorrent  to  her  type. 
For  whereas  I  had  altered,  she  had 
remained  unmoved. 

So  unsatisfying  was  this  state  of 
things  to  me,  however,  that  I  felt  un- 
able to  confide  my  deepest,  as  now  I 
can  do  easily  to  you — so  that  during 
these  few  days  of  intercourse  renewed, 
we  had  said,  it  seemed,  all  that  was 
to  be  said  with  regard  to  the  past.  My 
health  was  most  lovingly  discussed,  and 
then  my  immediate  and  remoter  future. 
I  was  aware  of  this  point  of  view — that 
I  was,  of  course,  her  own  dear  son,  but 
that  I  was  also  England's  son.  She 
was  intensely  patriotic  in  the  insular 
sense;  my  soul,  I  mean,  belonged  to 
the  British  Empire  rather  than  to 
humanity  and  the  world  at  large. 
Doubtless,  a  very  right  and  natural 
way  to  look  at  things.  .  .  .  She  ex- 
[113] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

pressed  a  real  desire  to  "see  your 
photographs,  my  boy,  of  those  out- 
landish places  where  they  sent  you"; 
then,  having  asked  certain  questions 
about  the  few  women  (officers'  wives 
and  so  forth)  who  appeared  in  some  of 
them,  she  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  and 
gave  me  her  very  definite  hopes  about 
"my  value  to  the  country,"  my  "duty 
to  the  family  traditions,"  even  to  the 
point,  finally,  of  suggesting  Parliament, 
in  what  she  termed  with  a  certain 
touch  of  pride  and  dignity,  "the  true 
Conservative  interest." 

"Men  like  yourself,  Richard,  are 
sorely  needed  now,"  she  added,  looking 
at  me  with  a  restrained  admiration; 
"I  am  sure  the  Party  would  nom- 
inate you  for  this  Constituency  that 
your  father  and  your  grandfather  both 
represented  before  you.  At  any 
rate,  they  shall  not  put  you  on  the 
shelf!" 

[114] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

And  before  I  went  to  bed — it  was 
my  second  or  third  night,  I  think — she 
had  let  me  see  plainly  another  hope 
that  was  equally  dear  to  her:  that  I 
should  marry  again.  There  was  an 
ominous  reference  to  my  "ample 
means,"  a  hint  of  regret  that,  since 
you  were  unavailable,  and  Eva  dead, 
our  branch  of  the  family  could  not 
continue  to  improve  the  eastern  counties 
and  the  world.  At  the  back  of  her 
mind,  indeed,  I  think  there  hovered  de- 
finite names,  for  a  garden  party  in  my 
honour  was  suggested  for  the  following 
week,  to  which  the  Chairman  of  the 
Local  Conservatives  would  come,  and 
where  various  desirable  neighbours 
would  be  only  too  proud  to  make  my 
acquaintance  and  press  my  colonial 
and  distinguished  fingers. 

In  the  interval  between  my  arrival 
and  the  "experience"  I  shall  presently 
describe,  I  had  meanwhile  renewed 
[115] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

my  acquaintance  with  the  countryside. 
The  emotions,  however,  I  anticipated, 
had  even  cherished  and  eagerly  looked 
forward  to,  had  not  materialized.  There 
was  a  chill  of  disappointment  over  me. 
For  the  beauty  I  had  longed  for  seemed 
here  so  thickly  veiled;  and  more  than 
once  I  surprised  in  my  heart  a  certain 
regret  that  I  had  come  home  at  all.  I 
caught  myself  thinking  of  that  immense 
and  trackless  country  I  had  left;  I  even 
craved  it  sometimes,  both  physically 
and  mentally,  as  though,  for  all  its 
luscious  grossness,  it  held  something 
that  nourished  and  stimulated,  some- 
thing large,  free  and  untamed  that 
was  lacking  in  this  orderly  land,  so 
neatly  fenced  and  parcelled  out  at 
home. 

The  imagined  richness  of  my  return, 

at    any   rate,    was    unfulfilled;  the  tie 

with   our   mother,   though    deep,   was 

uninspiring;    while    that    other    more 

[116] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

subtle  and  intangible  link  I  had  fondly 
dreamed  might  be  strengthened,  if  not 
wholly  proved,  was  met  with  a  flat 
denial  that  seemed  to  classify  it  as  non- 
existent. Hope,  in  this  particular  con- 
nection, returned  upon  me,  blank  and 
unrewarded.  .  .  .  The  familiar  scenes 
woke  no  hint  of  pain,  much  less  of 
questing  sweetness.  The  glamour  of 
association  did  not  operate.  No  per- 
sonal link  was  strengthened. 

And,  when  I  visited  the  garden  we 
had  known  together,  the  shady  path 
beneath  the  larches;  saw,  indeed,  the 
very  chairs  that  she  and  I  had  used, 
the  framed  portrait  in  the  morning- 
room,  the  harp  itself,  now  set  with  its 
limp  and  broken  strings  in  my  own 
chamber — I  was  unaware  of  any  ghostly 
thrill;  least  of  all  could  I  feel  that 
"somebody  was  pleased." 

Excursion  farther  afield  deepened 
the  disenchantment. 

[117] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

The  gorse  was  out  upon  the  Common, 
that  Common  where  we  played  as  boys, 
thinking  it  vast  and  wonderful  with  the 
promise  of  high  adventure  behind  every 
prickly  clump.  The  vastness,  of  course, 
was  gone,  but  the  power  of  suggestion 
had  gone  likewise.  It  was  merely  a 
Common  that  deserved  its  name.  For 
though  this  was  but  the  close  of 
May,  I  found  it  worn  into  threadbare 
patches,  with  edges  unravelled  like 
those  of  some  old  carpet  in  a  seaside 
lodging-house.  The  lanes  that  fed  it 
were  already  thick  with  dust  as  in 
thirsty  August,  and  instead  of  eglan- 
tine, wild-roses,  and  the  rest,  a  smell  of 
petrol  hung  upon  hedges  that  were 
quite  lustreless.  On  the  crest  of  the 
hill,  whence  we  once  thought  the  view 
included  heaven,  I  stood  by  those 
beaten  pines  we  named  The  Fort, 
counting  jagged  bits  of  glass  and 
scraps  of  faded  newspaper  that  marred 
[118] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

the  bright  green  of  the  sprouting 
bracken. 

This  glorious  spot,  once  sacred  to 
our  dreams,  was  like  a  great  backyard 
—the  Backyard  of  the  County — while 
the  view  we  loved  as  the  birthplace 
of  all  possible  adventure,  seemed  to  me 
now  without  spaciousness  or  distinction. 
The  trees  and  hedges  cramped  the 
little  fields  and  broke  their  rhythm. 
No  great  winds  ever  swept  them  clean. 
The  landscape  was  confused:  there  was 
no  adventure  in  it,  suggestion  least  of 
all.  Everything  had  already  happened 
there. 

And  on  my  way  home,  resentful 
perhaps  yet  eager  still,  I  did  a  dreadful 
thing.  Possibly  I  hoped  still  for  that 
divine  sensation  which  refused  to  come. 
I  visited  the  very  field,  the  very  poplar. 
...  I  found  the  scene  quite  unchanged, 
but  found  it  also — lifeless.  The  glamour 
[119] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

of  association  did  not  operate.  I  knew 
no  poignancy,  desire  lay  inert.  The 
thrill  held  stubbornly  aloof.  No  link 
was  strengthened.  ...  I  came  home 
slowly,  thinking  instead  of  my  mother's 
plans  and  wishes  for  me,  and  of  the 
clear  intention  to  incorporate  me  in 
the  stolid  and  conventional  formulas 
of  what  appeared  to  me  as  uninspired 
English  dullness.  My  disappointment 
crystallized  into  something  like  revolt. 
A  faint  hostility  even  rose  in  me  as  we 
sat  together,  talking  of  politics,  of  the 
London  news  just  come  to  hand,  of  the 
neighbours,  of  the  weather  too.  I  was 
conscious  of  opposition  to  her  stereo- 
typed plans,  and  of  resentment  towards 
the  lack  of  understanding  in  her.  I 
would  shake  free  and  follow  beauty. 
The  yearning,  for  want  of  sympathy, 
and  the  hunger,  for  lack  of  sustenance, 
grew  very  strong  and  urgent  in  me. 
[120] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  longed  passionately  just  then  for 
beauty — and  for  that  revelation  of  it 
which  included  somewhere  the  personal 
emotion  of  a  strangely  eager  love.  •  •  • 


[181] 


VIII 

THIS,  then,  was  somewhat  my  state  of 
mind,  when,  after  our  late  tea  on  the 
verandah,  I  strolled  out  on  to  the  lawn 
to  enjoy  my  pipe  in  the  quiet  of  the 
garden  paths.  I  felt  dissatisfied  and 
disappointed,  yet  knew  not  entirely, 
perhaps,  the  reason.  I  wished  to  be 
alone,  but  was  hungry  for  companion- 
ship as  well.  Mother  saw  me  go  and 
watched  attentively,  but  said  no  word, 
merely  following  me  a  moment  with 
her  eyes  above  the  edge  of  the  Times 
she  read,  as  of  old,  during  the  hours 
between  tea  and  dinner.  The  Spectator, 
her  worldly  Bible,  lay  ready  to  her 
hand  when  the  Times  should  have  been 
finished.  They  were,  respectively,  as 
always,  her  dictionary  of  opinion,  and 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

her  medicine-chest.  Before  I  had  gone 
a  dozen  yards,  her  head  disappeared 
behind  the  printed  sheet  again.  The 
roses  flowed  between  us. 

I  felt  her  following  glance,  as  I  felt 
also  its  withdrawal.  Then  I  forgot 
her.  ...  A  touch  of  melancholy  stole 
on  me,  as  the  garden  took  me  in  its 
charge.  For  a  garden  is  a  ghostly 
place,  and  an  old-world  garden,  above 
all,  leads  thought  backwards  among 
vanished  memories  rather  than  forward 
among  constructive  hopes  and  joys. 

I  yielded,  in  any  case,  a  little  to  this 
subtle  pressure  from  the  past,  and  I 
must  have  strolled  among  the  lilac  and 
laburnums  for  a  longer  time  than  I 
knew,  since  the  gardener  who  had 
been  trimming  the  flower-beds  with  a 
hand  lawn-mower  was  gone,  and  dusk 
already  veiled  the  cedars,  when  I  found 
myself  leaning  against  the  wooden  gate 
[123] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  opened  into  the  less  formal  part 
beyond  the  larches. 

The  house  was  not  visible  from 
where  I  stood.  I  smelt  the  May,  the 
lilac,  the  heavy  perfume  everywhere  of 
the  opening  year;  it  rose  about  me 
in  waves,  as  though  full-bosomed 
summer  lay  breathing  her  great  prom- 
ises close  at  hand,  while  spring,  still 
lingering,  with  bright  eyes  of  dew, 
watched  over  her.  Then,  suddenly, 
behind  these  richer  scents,  I  caught  a 
sweeter,  wilder  tang  than  anything 
they  contained,  and  turning,  saw  that 
the  pines  were  closer  than  I  knew. 
A  waft  of  something  purer,  fresher, 
reached  my  nostrils  on  a  little  noise- 
less wind,  as,  leaning  across  the  gate, 
I  turned  my  back  upon  the  cultivated 
grounds  and  gazed  into  a  region  of 
more  natural,  tangled  growth. 

The  change  was  sudden.  It  was  ex- 
quisite, sharp  and  unexpected,  too,  as 
[124] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

with  a  little  touch  of  wonder.  There 
was  surprise  in  it.  For  the  garden, 
you  will  remember,  melts  here  insens- 
ibly into  a  stretch  of  scattered  pines, 
where  heather  and  bracken  cover  wide 
reaches  of  unreclaimed  and  useless  land. 
Irregular  trails  of  whitish  sand  gleamed 
faintly  before  the  shadows  swallowed 
them,  and  in  the  open  patches  I  saw 
young  silver-birches  that  made  me 
think  of  running  children  arrested  in 
mid-play.  They  stood  outlined  very 
tenderly  against  the  sky;  their  slender 
forms  still  quivered ;  their  feathery  hair 
fell  earthwards  as  they  drew  themselves 
together,  bending  their  wayward  little 
heads  before  the  approaching  night. 
Behind  them,  framed  by  the  darker 
pines  into  a  glowing  frieze,  the  west 
still  burned  with  the  last  fires  of  the 
sunset;  I  could  see  the  heather,  rising 
and  falling  like  a  tumbled  sea  against 

raw 


THE  GARDEN  OE  SURVIVAL 

the  horizon,  where  the  dim  heave  of 
distant  moorland  broke  the  afterglow. 

And  the  dusk  now  held  this  region 
in  its  magic.  So  strange,  indeed,  was 
the  contrast  between  the  ebony  shadows 
and  the  pools  and  streaks  of  amberish 
light,  that  I  looked  about  me  for  a 
moment,  almost  sharply.  There  was  a 
touch  of  the  unearthly  in  this  loveliness 
that  bewildered  sight  a  little.  Extra- 
ordinarily still  the  world  was,  yet  there 
seemed  activity  close  upon  my  foot- 
steps, an  activity  more  than  of  inani- 
mate Nature,  yet  less  than  of  human 
beings.  With  solidarity  it  had  nothing 
to  do,  though  it  sought  material  ex- 
pression. It  was  very  near.  And  I  was 
startled,  I  recognized  the  narrow  fron- 
tier between  fear  and  wonder.  And 
then  I  crossed  it. 

For  something  stopped  me  dead.  I 
paused  and  stared.  My  heart  began  to 
beat  more  rapidly.  Then,  ashamed  of 
[126] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

my  moment's  hesitation,  I  was  about 
to  move  forward  through  the  gate, 
when  again  I  halted.  I  listened,  and 
caught  my  breath.  I  fancied  the  still- 
ness became  articulate,  the  shadows 
stirred,  the  silence  was  about  to  break. 

I  remember  trying  to  think;  I 
wanted  to  relieve  the  singular  tension 
by  finding  words,  if  only  inner  words, — 
when,  out  of  the  stillness,  out  of  the 
silence,  out  of  the  shadows — something 
happened.  Some  faculty  of  judgment, 
some  attitude  in  which  I  normally 
clothed  myself,  were  abruptly  stripped 
away.  I  was  left  bare  and  sensitive.  I 
could  almost  have  believed  that  my 
body  had  dropped  aside,  that  I  stood 
there  naked,  unprotected,  a  form-less 
spirit,  stirred  and  lifted  by  the  passing 
breeze. 

And  then  it  came.  As  with  a  sword- 
thrust  of  blinding  sweetness,  I  was  laid 
open.  Yet  so  instant,  and  of  such 
[127] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

swiftness,  was  the  stroke,  that  I  can 
only  describe  it  by  saying  that,  while 
pierced  and  wounded,  I  was  also  healed 
again. 

Without  hint  or  warning,  Beauty 
swept  me  with  a  pain  and  happiness 
well  nigh  intolerable.  It  drenched  me 
and  was  gone.  No  lightning  flash  could 
have  equalled  the  swiftness  of  its  amaz- 
ing passage;  something  tore  in  me; 
the  emotion  was  enveloping  but  very 
tender;  it  was  both  terrible  yet  dear. 
Would  to  God  I  might  crystallize  it 
for  you  in  those  few  mighty  words 
which  should  waken  in  yourself — in 
every  one! — the  wonder  and  the  joy. 
It  contained,  I  felt,  both  the  worship 
that  belongs  to  awe  and  the  tenderness 
of  infinite  love  which  welcomes  tears. 
Some  power  that  was  not  of  this  world, 
yet  that  used  the  details  of  this  world 
to  manifest,  had  visited  me. 

No  element  of  surprise  lay  in  it  even. 
[128] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

It  was  too  swift  for  anything  but 
joy,  which  of  all  emotions  is  the  most 
instantaneous:  I  had  been  empty,  I 
was  filled.  Beauty  that  bathes  the 
stars  and  drowns  the  very  universe 
had  stolen  out  of  this  wild  morsel  of 
wasted  and  uncared-for  English  garden, 
and  dropped  its  transforming  magic 
into — me.  At  the  very  moment,  more- 
over, when  I  had  been  ready  to  deny 
it  altogether.  I  saw  my  insignificance, 
yet,  such  was  the  splendour  it  had 
wakened  in  me,  knew  my  right  as  well. 
It  could  be  ever  thus;  some  attitude 
in  myself  alone  prevented.  .  .  . 

And — somebody  was  pleased. 

This  personal  ingredient  lay  secure 
in  the  joy  that  assuredly  remained 
when  the  first  brief  intolerable  ecstasy 
had  passed.  The  link  I  desired  to 
recognize  was  proved,  not  merely 
strengthened.  Beauty  had  cleft  me 
open,  and  a  message,  if  you  will,  had 
[129] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

been  delivered.  This  personal  hint 
persisted;  I  was  almost  aware  of  con- 
scious and  intelligent  direction.  For 
to  you  I  will  make  the  incredible  con- 
fession, that  I  dare  phrase  the  experi- 
ence in  another  fashion,  equally  true: 
In  that  flashing  instant  I  stood  naked 
and  shelterless  to  the  gaze  of  some  one 
who  had  looked  upon  me.  I  was 
aware  of  sight;  of  eyes  in  which  "burn- 
ing memory  lights  love  home."  These 
eyes,  this  sight  had  gazed  at  me,  then 
turned  away.  For  in  that  blinding 
sweetness  there  was  light,  as  with  the 
immediate  withdrawal  again  there  was 
instant  darkness.  I  was  first  visible, 
then  concealed.  I  was  clothed  again 
and  covered. 

And  the  thick  darkness  that  followed 
made  it  appear  as  though  night,  in  one 
brief  second,  had  taken  the  place  of 
dusk. 

Trembling,  I  leaned  across  the 
[130] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

wooden  gate  and  waited  while  the  dark- 
ness settled  closer.  I  can  swear,  more- 
over, that  it  was  neither  dream,  nor 
hope,  nor  any  hungry  fantasy  in  me  that 
then  recognized  a  further  marvel — I 
was  no  longer  now  alone. 

A  presence  faced  me,  standing 
breast-high  in  the  bracken.  The  garden 
had  been  empty ;  somebody  now  walked 
there  with  me. 

It  was,  as  I  mentioned,  the  still  hour 
between  the  twilight  and  the  long,  cool 
dark  of  early  summer.  The  little 
breeze  passed  whispering  through  the 
pines.  I  smelt  the  pungent  perfume 
of  dry  heather,  sand,  and  bracken. 
The  horizon,  low  down  between  the 
trunks,  shone  gold  and  crimson  still, 
but  fading  rapidly.  I  stood  there  for 
a  long  time  trembling;  I  was  a  part 
of  it;  I  felt  that  I  was  shining,  as 
though  my  inner  joy  irradiated  the 
[131] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

world  about  me.  Nothing  in  all  my 
life  has  been  so  real,  so  positive.  I  was 
assuredly  not  alone.  .  .  . 

The  first  sharp  magic,  the  flash  that 
pierced  and  burned,  had  gone  its  way, 
but  Beauty  still  stood  so  perilously 
near,  so  personal,  that  any  moment,  I 
felt,  it  must  take  tangible  form,  betray 
itself  in  visible  movement  of  some  sort, 
break  possibly  into  audible  sound  of 
actual  speech.  It  would  not  have 
surprised  me — more,  it  would  have  been 
natural  almost — had  I  felt  a  touch  upon 
my  hands  and  lips,  or  caught  the  mur- 
mur of  spoken  words  against  my  ear. 

Yet  from  such  direct  revelation  I 
shrank  involuntarily  and  by  instinct.  I 
could  not  have  borne  it  then.  I  had 
the  feeling  that  it  must  mar  and  defile 
a  wonder  already  great  enough;  there 
would  have  lain  in  it,  too,  a  betrayal  of 
the  commonplace,  as  of  something  which 
I  could  not  possibly  hold  for  true.  I 
[132] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

must  have  distrusted  my  own  senses 
even,  for  the  beauty  that  cleft  me 
open  dealt  directly  with  the  soul  alone, 
leaving  the  senses  wholly  disengaged. 
The  Presence  was  not  answerable  to 
any  lesser  recognition. 

Thus  I  shrank  and  turned  away, 
facing  the  familiar  garden  and  the  "wet 
bird-haunted  English  lawn,"  a  spiritual 
tenderness  in  me  still  dreading  that  I 
might  see  or  hear  or  feel,  destroying 
thus  the  reality  of  my  experience.  Yet 
there  was,  thank  God,  no  speech,  no 
touch,  no  movement,  other  than  the 
shiver  of  the  birches,  the  breath  of  air 
against  my  cheek,  the  droop  and  bend- 
ing of  the  nearer  pine  boughs.  There 
was  no  audible  or  visible  expression;  I 
saw  no  figure  breast-high  in  the 
bracken.  Yet  sound  there  was,  a  mo- 
ment later.  For,  as  I  turned  away,  a 
bird  upon  a  larch  twig  overhead  burst 
into  sudden  and  exultant  song. 
[133] 


IX 

Now,  do  not  be  alarmed  lest  I  shall 
attempt  to  describe  a  list  of  fanciful 
unrealities  that  borrowed  life  from  a 
passing  emotion  merely;  the  emotion 
was  permanent,  the  results  enduring. 
Please  believe  the  honest  statement 
that,  with  the  singing  of  that  bird,  the 
pent-up  stress  in  me  became  measurably 
articulate.  Some  bird  in  my  heart,  long 
caged,  rang  out  in  answering  inner 
song. 

It  is  also  true,  I  think,  that  there 
were  no  words  in  me  at  the  moment, 
and  certainly  no  desire  for  speech.  Had 
a  companion  been  with  me,  I  should 
probably  have  merely  lit  my  pipe  and 
smoked  in  silence;  if  I  spoke  at  all,  I 
should  have  made  some  commonplace 
[134] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

remark:  "It's  late;  we  must  be  going 
in  to  dress  for  dinner.  ..."  As  it  was, 
however,  the  emotion  in  me,  answering 
the  singing  of  the  bird,  became,  as  I 
said,  measurably  articulate.  I  give  you 
simple  facts,  as  though  this  were  my 
monthly  Report  to  the  Foreign  Office 
in  days  gone  by.  I  spoke  no  word 
aloud,  of  course.  It  was  rather  that 
my  feelings  found  utterance  in  the 
rapturous  song  I  listened  to,  and  that 
my  thoughts  knew  this  relief  of  vicarious 
expression,  though  of  inner  and  inau- 
dible expression.  The  beauty  of  scene 
and  moment  were  adequately  recorded, 
and  for  ever  in  that  song.  They  were 
now  part  of  me. 

Unaware  of  its  perfect  mission  the 
bird  sang,  of  course  because  it  could 
not  help  itself;  perhaps  some  mating 
thrush,  perhaps  a  common  blackbird 
only;  I  cannot  say;  I  only  realized  that 
no  human  voice,  no  human  music,  even 
[135] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

of  the  most  elaborate  and  inspired  kind, 
could  have  made  this  beauty  similarly 
articulate.  And,  for  a  moment  I  knew 
my  former  pain  that  I  could  not  share 
this  joy,  this  beauty,  with  others  of  my 
kind,  that,  except  for  myself,  the  loveli- 
ness seemed  lost  and  wasted.  There 
was  no  spectator,  no  other  listener;  the 
sweet  spring  night  was  lavish  for  no 
audience;  the  revelation  had  been  re- 
peated, would  be  repeated,  a  thousand 
thousand  times  without  recognition  and 
without  reward. 

Then,  as  I  listened,  memory,  it 
seemed,  took  yeauning  by  the  hand,  and 
led  me  towards  that  inner  utterance  I 
have  mentioned.  There  was  no  voice, 
least  of  all  that  inner  voice  you  surely 
have  anticipated.  But  there  was  utter- 
ance, as  though  my  whole  being  com- 
bined with  nature  in  its  birth. 

Into  the  mould  of  familiar  sentences 
of  long  ago  it  ran,  yet  nearer  at  last  to 
[136] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

full  disclosure,  because  the  pregnant 
sentences  had  altered: 

"I  need  your  forgiveness  born  of 
love  .  .  ."  passed  through  me  with  the 
singing  of  the  bird. 

I  listened  with  the  closest  inner 
attention  I  have  ever  known.  I  paused. 
My  heart  brimmed  with  an  expectant 
wonder  that  was  happiness.  And  the 
happiness  was  justified.  For  the  fa- 
miliar sentence  halted  before  its  first 
sorrowful  completion;  the  poignant 
close  remained  unuttered — because  it 
was  no  longer  true. 

Out  of  deep  love  in  me,  new-born, 
that  held  the  promise  of  fulfilment,  the 
utterance  concluded: 

"...  I  have  found  a  better  way. . . ." 

Before  I   could  think  or   question, 

and  almost  as  though  a  whisper  of  the 

wind  went  past,  there  rose  in  me  at 

once   this   answering  recognition.      It 

[137] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

seemed  authentically  convincing;  it 
was  glorious;  it  was  full  of  joy: 

"That  beauty  which  was  Marion  lives 
on,  and  lives  for  me." 

It  was  as  though  a  blaze  of  light 
shone  through  me;  somewhere  in  my 
body  there  were  tears  of  welcome;  for 
this  recognition  was  to  me  reunion. 

It  must  seem  astonishing  for  me,  a 
mere  soldier  and  Colonial  Governor,  to 
confess  you  that  I  stood  there  listening 
to  the  song  for  a  long  interval  of  what 
I  can  only  term,  with  utmost  sincerity, 
communion.  Beauty  and  love  both 
visited  me;  I  believe  that  truth  and 
wisdom  entered  softly  with  them.  As 
I  wrote  above,  I  saw  my  own  insignifi- 
cance, yet,  such  was  the  splendour  in 
me,  I  knew  my  right  as  well.  It  could 
be  ever  thus.  My  attitude  alone  pre- 
vented. I  was  not  excluded,  not  cut 
off .  This  Beauty  lay  ready  to  my  hand, 
[138] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

always  available,  for  ever,  now.  It  was 
not  unharvested.  But  more — it  could 
be  shared  with  others;  it  was  become  a 
portion  of  myself,  and  that  which  is  part 
of  my  being  must,  inevitably  and  auto- 
matically, be  given  out. 

It  was,  thus,  nowhere  wasted  or  un- 
harvested; it  offered  with  prodigal 
opportunity  a  vehicle  for  that  inspira- 
tion which  is  love,  and  being  love  of 
purest  kind,  is  surely  wisdom  too.  The 
dead,  indeed,  do  not  return,  yet  they 
are  active,  and  those  who  lived  beauty 
in  their  lives  are  still,  through  that 
beauty,  benevolently  active. 

I  will  give  you  now  the  change  in- 
stantaneously produced  in  me: 

There  rose  in  me  another,  deeper 
point  of  view  that  dispelled  as  by  magic 
the  disenchantment  that  had  chilled 
these  first  days  of  my  return.  I  stood 
here  in  this  old-world  garden,  but  I 
stood  also  in  the  heart  of  that  beauty, 
[139] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

so  carefully  hidden,  so  craftily  screened 
behind  the  obvious,  that  strong  and 
virile  beauty  which  is  England.  Within 
call  of  my  voice,  still  studying  by  lamp- 
light now  the  symbols  of  her  well-estab- 
lished strength,  burning,  moreover,  with 
the  steady  faith  which  does  not  easily 
break  across  restraint,  and  loving  the 
man  as  she  had  loved  the  little  boy,  sat 
one,  not  wondering  perhaps  at  my  un- 
spoken misunderstanding,  yet  hoping, 
patiently  and  in  silence,  for  its  removal 
in  due  time.  In  the  house  of  our  boy- 
hood, of  our  earliest  play  and  quarrels, 
unchanged  and  unchangeable,  knowing 
simply  that  I  had  "come  home  again  to 
her,"  our  mother  waited.  .  .  . 

I  need  not  elaborate  this  for  you, 
you  for  whom  England  and  our  mother 
win  almost  a  single,  undivided  love.  I 
had  misjudged,  but  the  cause  of  my  mis- 
judgment  was  thus  suddenly  removed. 
A  subtler  understanding  insight,  a  sym- 
[140] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

pathy  born  of  deeper  love,  something 
of  greater  wisdom,  in  a  word,  awoke  in 
me.  The  thrill  had  worked  its  magic 
as  of  old,  but  this  time  in  its  slower 
English  fashion,  deep,  and  characteris- 
tically sure.  To  my  country  (that  is,  to 
my  first  experience  of  impersonal  love) 
and  to  my  mother  (that  is,  to  my  earli- 
est acquaintance  with  personal  love) 
I  had  been  ready,  in  my  impatience,  to 
credit  an  injustice.  Unknown  to  me, 
thus,  there  had  been  need  of  guidance, 
of  assistance.  Beauty,  having  cleared 
the  way,  had  worked  upon  me  its  amaz- 
ing alchemy. 

There,  in  fewest  possible  words,  is 
what  had  happened. 

I  remember  that  for  a  long  time,  then, 
I  waited  in  the  hush  of  my  childhood's 
garden,  listening,  as  it  were,  with  every 
pore,  and  conscious  that  some  one  who 
was  pleased  interpreted  the  beauty  to 
my  soul.  It  seemed,  as  I  said,  a  mes- 
[141] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

sage  of  a  personal  kind.  It  was  regen- 
erative, moveover,  in  so  far  that  life  was 
enlarged  and  lifted  upon  a  nobler  scale ; 
new  sources  of  power  were  open  to  me ; 
I  saw  a  better  way.  Irresistibly  it  came 
to  me  again  that  beauty,  far  from  being 
wasted,  was  purposive,  that  this  purpose 
was  of  a  redeeming  kind,  and  that  some 
one  who  was  pleased  co-operated  with 
it  for  my  personal  benefit.  No  figure, 
thank  God,  was  visible,  no  voice  was 
audible,  but  a  presence  there  indu- 
bitably was,  and,  whether  I  responded 
or  otherwise,  would  be  always  there. 

And  the  power  was  such  that  I  felt 
as  though  the  desire  of  the  planet  itself 
yearned  through  it  for  expression. 


[142] 


I  WATCHED  the  little  bird  against  the 
paling  sky,  and  my  thoughts,  following 
the  happy  singing,  went  slowly  back- 
wards into  the  half-forgotten  past.  .  .  . 
They  led  me  again  through  the  maze 
of  gorgeous  and  mysterious  hopes,  un- 
remembered  now  so  many  years,  that 
had  marked  my  childhood.  Few  of 
these,  if  any,  it  seemed,  had  known  ful- 
filment. ...  I  stole  back  with  them, 
past  the  long  exile  in  great  Africa,  into 
the  region  of  my  youth  and  early  boy- 
hood. .  .  . 

And,  as  though  a  hand  uncovered  it 
deliberately,  I  recalled  an  earliest  dream 
— strangest,  perhaps,  of  all  the  mys- 
terious dreams  of  that  far  time.  It  had, 
I  thought,  remained  unrealized,  as,  cer- 
[148] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

tainly,  till  this  moment,  it  had  lain 
forgotten — a  boyish  dream  that  behind 
the  veils  of  the  Future  some  one  waited 
for  me  with  the  patience  of  a  perfect 
love  that  was  my  due. 

The  dream  reached  forward  towards 
some  one  who  must  one  day  appear, 
and  whose  coming  would  make  life 
sweet  and  wonderful,  fulfilling,  even 
explaining,  the  purpose  of  my  being. 
This  dream  which  I  had  thought  pecu- 
liarly my  own,  belongs,  I  learned  later, 
to  many,  if  not  to  the  race  in  general, 
and,  with  a  smile  at  my  own  incurable 
vanity  (and  probably  a  grimace  at  being 
neatly  duped) ,  I  had  laid  it  on  one  side. 
At  any  rate,  I  forgot  it,  for  nothing 
happened  to  keep  it  active,  much  less 
revive  it. 

Now,   however,   looking  backwards, 

and  listening  to  the  singing  in  the  sky, 

I  recalled  what  almost  seemed  to  have 

been  its  attempt  at  realization.    Having 

[144] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

recovered  its  earliest  appearance,  my 
thought  next  leaped  forward  to  the 
moment  that  might  possibly  have  been 
its  reappearance.  For  memory  bore  me 
off  without  an  effort  on  my  part,  and 
set  me  abruptly  within  a  room  of  the 
house  I  had  come  home  to,  where 
Marion  sat  beside  me,  singing  to  the 
harp  she  loved.  The  scene  rose  up 
before  me  as  of  yesterday  .  ,  .  the 
emotions  themselves  reconstituted.  I 
recalled  the  deep,  half -sad  desire  to  be 
worthy  of  her,  to  persuade  myself  I 
loved  as  she  did,  even  the  curious  im- 
pulse to  acknowledge  an  emotion  that 
came  and  went  before  it  could  be  wholly 
realized — the  feeling,  namely,  that  I 
ought  to  love  her  because — no  more,  no 
less  is  the  truth — because  she  needed  it: 
and  then  the  blank  dismay  that  followed 
my  failure,  as  with  a  kind  of  shameful 
horror  before  a  great  purpose  that  my 
emptiness  left  unfulfilled. 
[145] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

The  very  song  came  back  that  moved 
me  more  than  any  else  she  sang — her 
favourite  it  was  as  well.  I  heard  the 
twanging  of  the  strings  her  fingers 
plucked.  I  heard  the  words: 

"About  the  little  chambers  of  my  heart 
Friends  have  been  coming — going — many  a  year. 

The  doors  stand  open  there, 
Some,  lightly  stepping,  enter ;  some  depart 

Freely  they  come  and  go,  at  will. 

The  walls  give  back  their  laughter ;  all  day  long 

They  fill  the  house  with  song. 
One  door  alone  is  shut,  one  chamber  still." 

With  each  repetition  of  the  song,  I 
remembered,  how  at  that  time  my  boy- 
hood's dream  came  back  to  me,  as 
though  its  fulfilment  were  at  last  at 
hand;  as  though,  somehow,  that  "door" 
must  open,  that  "still  chamber"  wel- 
come the  sweetness  and  the  loveliness  of 
her  who  sang.  For  I  could  not 
listen  to  the  music,  nor  watch  her 
[146] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

fingers  moving  down  the  strings,  her 
slender  wrist  and  rounded  arm,  her 
foot  upon  the  pedal  as  she  held  the 
instrument  so  close — without  this 
poignant  yearning  that  proved  ever 
vain,  or  this  shame  of  unshed  tears 
my  heart  mysteriously  acknowledged. 
To  the  end,  as  you  know,  that  door 
remained  unopened,  that  chamber 
still. 

It  was  the  singing  of  this  sweet 
English  bird,  making  articulate  for  me 
the  beauty  I  could  not  utter,  that 
brought  back  to  memory  the  scene,  the 
music,  and  the  words.  .  .  . 

I  looked  round  me;  I  looked  up. 
As  I  did  so,  the  little  creature,  with  one 
last  burst  of  passionate  happiness,  flew 
away  into  the  darkness.  And  silence 
followed,  so  deep  that  I  could  hear  the 
murmur  of  my  blood  ...  an  exquisite 
joy  ran  through  me,  making  me  quiver 
with  expectancy  from  head  to  foot.  .  .  . 
[147] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

And  it  was  then  suddenly  I  became 
aware  that  the  long-closed  door  at 
last  was  open,  the  still  chamber 
occupied.  Some  one  who  was  pleased, 
stretching  a  hand  across  the  silence  and 
the  beauty,  drew  me  within  that 
chamber  of  the  heart,  so  tnat  I  passed 
behind  the  door  that  was  now  a  veil, 
and  now  a  mist,  and  now  a  shining 
blaze  of  light  .  .  .  passed  into  a  remote 
and  inner  stillness  where  that  direct 
communion  which  is  wordless  can  alone 
take  place. 

It  was,  I  verily  believe,  a  stillness 
of  the  spirit.  At  the  centre  of  the 
tempest,  of  the  whirlpool,  of  the  heart's 
commotion,  there  is  peace.  I  stood 
close  against  that  source  of  our  life 
which  lies  hid  with  beauty  very  far 
away,  and  yet  so  near  that  it  is  en- 
closed in  every  hope,  in  every  yearning, 
and  in  every  tear.  For  the  whisper 
came  to  me,  beyond  all  telling  sure. 
[148] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Beauty  had  touched  me,  Wisdom  come 
to  birth ;  and  Love,  whispering  through 
the  silence  those  marvellous  words  that 
sum  up  all  spiritual  experience,  proved 
it  to  me: 

"Be  still— and  know.  .  .  ." 

I  found  myself  moving  slowly  across 
the  lawn  again  towards  the  house.  I 
presently  heard  the  wind  mousing  softly 
in  the  limes.  The  air  was  fresh  and 
cool.  The  first  stars  were  out.  I  saw 
the  laburnum  drooping,  as  though  thick 
clusters  of  these  very  stars  had  drifted 
earthwards  among  the  branches;  I  saw 
the  gleam  of  the  lilac;  across  the  dim 
tangle  of  the  early  roses  shone  the 
familiar  windows,  cosy  now  with  the 
glow  of  lighted  lamps  .  .  .  and  I  be- 
came suddenly,  in  a  very  intimate  sense, 
"aware"  of  the  garden.  The  Presence 
that  walked  beside  me  moved  abruptly 
closer.  This  Presence  and  the  garden 
[149] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

seemed,  as  in  some  divine  mysterious 
way,  inseparable. 

There  was  a  stirring  of  the  dimmest 
and  most  primitive  associations  possible. 
Memory  plunged  back  among  ancestral, 
even  racial,  shadows.  I  recalled  the 
sweet  and  tender  legend  of  the  begin- 
nings of  the  world,  when  something 
divine,  it  was  whispered,  was  intimate 
with  man,  and  companioning  his  earliest 
innocence,  walked  with  him  in  that 
happier  state  those  childlike  poets 
called — a  garden.  That  childhood  of 
the  world  seemed  very  near. 

I  found  again  the  conditions  of  inno- 
cence and  pristine  wonder — of  simplic- 
ity. There  was  a  garden  in  my  heart, 
and  some  one  walked  with  me  therein. 

For  Life  in  its  simplest  form — of 
breathing  leaves  and  growing  flowers, 
of  trees  and  plants  and  shrubs — glowed 
all  about  me  in  the  darkness.  The 
blades  of  grass,  the  blossoms  hanging 
[150] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

in  the  air,  strong  stems  and  hidden 
roots,  fulfilled  themselves  with  patience 
upon  every  side,  brimming  with  beauty 
and  stillness  did  not  seek  to  advertise. 
And  of  this  simplest  form  of  life — the 
vegetable  kingdom — I  became  vividly 
aware,  prodigal,  mysterious,  yet  pur- 
posive. The  outer  garden  merged  with 
the  inner,  and  the  Presence  walked  in 
both  of  them.  .  .  , 

I  was  led  backwards,  far  down  into 
my  own  being.  I  reached  the  earliest, 
simplest  functions  by  which  I  myself 
had  come  to  be,  the  state  where  the 
frontier  lies  between  that  which  is  dead 
and  that  which  is  alive.  Somewhere 
between  the  mineral  and  vegetable 
worlds,  I  knew,  that  frontier  lay.  For 
the  vegetable  kingdom  alone  possesses 
the  power  of  converting  the  mineral  or 
the  chemical  into  the  living  organism 
by  absorption;  and  here,  among  the 
[151] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

leaves  and  roots  and  flowers,  that  power 
was  sweetly,  irresistibly,  at  work. 

It  seemed  I  reached  that  frontier, 
and  I  passed  it.  Beauty  came  through 
the  most  primitive  aspect  of  my  being. 

And  so  I  would  tell  you,  you  alone 
of  all  the  world,  that  the  Presence 
walking  beside  me  in  the  scented  dark- 
ness came  suddenly  so  close  that  I  was 
aware  of  it  in  what  seemed  my  earliest 
and  most  innocent  state  of  soul. 

Beside  me,  in  that  old-world  garden, 
walked  the  Cause  of  all  things.  The 
Beauty  that  in  you  was  truth,  in  Marion 
tenderness,  was  harvested:  and  some- 
body was  pleased. 


[15*] 


XI 

ALL  this  I  have  told  to  you  because 
we  have  known  together  the  closest 
intimacy  possible  to  human  beings — 
we  have  shared  beauty. 

They  said,  these  many  days  ago, 
that  you  had  gone  away,  that  you  were 
dead.  The  wind  on  the  Downs,  your 
favourite  Downs,  your  favourite  south- 
west wind,  received  your  dust,  scatter- 
ing it  like  pollen  into  space.  No  sign 
has  come  to  me,  no  other  sign  than  this 
I  tell  you  now  in  my  long  letter.  It  is 
enough.  I  know. 

There  were  thus  two  loves,  one  un- 
recognized till  afterwards,  the  other 
realized  at  the  time.  ...  In  the  body 
there  was  promise.  There  is  now  ac- 
complishment. 

[158] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

It  is  very  strange,  and  yet  so  simple. 
Beauty,  I  suppose,  opens  the  heart, 
extends  the  consciousness.  It  is  a 
platitude,  of  course.  You  will  laugh 
when  I  tell  you  that  afterwards  I  tried 
to  reason  it  all  out.  I  am  not  apparently 
intellectual.  The  books  I  read  would 
fill  your  empty  room — on  aesthetics, 
art,  and  what  not.  I  got  no  result 
from  any  of  them,  but  rather  a  state  of 
muddle  that  was,  no  doubt,  congestion. 
None  of  the  theories  and  explanations 
touched  the  root  of  the  matter.  I  am 
evidently  not  "an  artist" — that  at  any 
rate  I  gathered,  and  yet  these  learned 
people  seemed  to  write  about  something 
they  had  never  "lived."  I  could  almost 
believe  that  the  writers  of  these  subtle 
analyses  have  never  themselves  felt 
beauty — the  burn,  the  rapture,  the 
regenerating  fire.  They  have  known, 
perhaps,  a  reaction  of  the  physical 
nerves,  but  never  this  light  within  the 
[164] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

soul  that  lifts  the  horizons  of  the 
consciousness  and  makes  one  know 
that  God  exists,  that  death  is  not  even 
separation,  and  that  eternity  is  now. 

Metaphysics  I  studied  too.  I  fooled 
myself,  thirty  years  after  the  proper 
time  for  doing  so,  over  the  old  problem 
whether  beauty  lies  in  the  object  seen 
or  in  the  mind  that  sees  the  object. 
And  in  the  end  I  came  back  hungrily 
to  my  simple  starting-point — that 
beauty  moved  me.  It  opened  my  heart 
to  one  of  its  many  aspects — truth,  wis- 
dom, joy,  and  love — and  what  else,  in 
the  name  of  heaven,  mattered! 

I  sold  the  books  at  miserable  prices 
that  made  Mother  question  my  judg- 
ment: coloured  plates,  costly  bindings, 
rare  editions,  and  all.  Aesthetics,  Art, 
rules  and  principles  might  go  hang  for 
all  I  cared  or  any  good  they  did  me. 
It  was  intellect  that  had  devised  all 
these.  The  truth  was  simpler  far.  I 
[155] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

cared  nothing  for  these  scholarly  ex- 
planations of  beauty's  genesis  and  laws 
of  working,  because  I  felt  it.  Hunger 
needs  no  analysis,  does  it?  Nor  does 
Love.  Could  anything  be  more  stulti- 
fying! Give  to  the  first  craving  a  lump 
of  bread,  and  to  the  second  a  tangible 
man  or  woman — and  let  those  who 
have  the  time  analyse  both  cravings  at 
their  leisure. 

For  the  thrill  I  mean  is  never 
physical,  and  has  nothing  in  common 
with  that  acute  sensation  experienced 
when  the  acrobat  is  seen  to  miss  the 
rope  in  mid-air  as  he  swings  from  bar  to 
bar.  There  is  no  shock  in  it,  for  shock 
is  of  the  nerves,  arresting  life;  the  thrill 
I  speak  of  intensifies  and  sets  it  rising 
in  a  wave  that  flows.  It  is  of  the  spirit. 
It  wounds,  yet  marvellously.  It  is 
unearthly.  Therein,  I  think,  lies  its 
essential  quality;  by  chance,  as  it  were, 
in  writing  this  intimate  confession,  I 
[156] 


THE  GARDEN  OI   SURVIVAL 

have  hit  upon  the  very  word:  it  is 
unearthly,  it  contains  surprise.  Yes, 
Beauty  wounds  marvellously,  then 
follows  the  new  birth,  regeneration. 
There  is  a  ravishment  of  the  entire 
being  into  light  and  knowledge. 

The  element  of  surprise  is  certainly 
characteristic.  The  thrill  comes  un- 
heralded— a  sudden  uprush  of  convinc- 
ing joy  loosed  from  some  store  that  is 
inexhaustible.  Unlike  the  effect  of  a 
nervous  shock  which  can  be  lived  over 
and  reconstituted,  it  knows  no  repeti- 
tion; its  climax  is  instantaneous,  there 
is  neither  increase  nor  declension;  it  is 
unrecoverable;  it  strikes  and  is  gone. 
Breaking  across  the  phantasmagoria  of 
appearances,  it  comes  as  a  flash  of 
reality,  a  lightning  recognition  of  some- 
thing that  cannot  be  travestied.  It  is 
not  in  time.  It  is  eternity. 

I  suspect  you  know  it  now  with  me; 
in  fact  I  am  certain  that  you  do.  .  .  „ 
[157] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

I  remember  how,  many  years  ago — 
in  that  delightful  period  between  boy- 
hood and  manhood  when  we  felt  our 
wings  and  argued  about  the  universe — 
we  discovered  this  unearthly  quality  in 
three  different  things:  the  song  of  a 
bird,  the  eyes  of  a  child,  and  a  wild- 
flower  come  upon  unexpectedly  in  a 
scene  of  desolation.  For  in  all  three, 
we  agreed,  shines  that  wonder  which 
holds  adoration,  that  joy  which  is 
spontaneous  and  uncalculated,  and 
that  surprise  which  pertains  to  Eter- 
nity looking  out  triumphantly  upon 
ephemeral  things. 

So,  at  least,  in  our  youthful  eager- 
ness, we  agreed;  and  to  this  day  one 
in  particular  of  the  three— a  bird's  song 
— always  makes  me  think  of  God. 
That  divine,  ecstatic,  simple  sound  is 
to  me  ever  both  surprising  and  un- 
earthly. Each  time  it  takes  me  by 
surprise — that  people  do  not  hush  their 
[158] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

talk  to  kneel  and  listen.  .  .  .  And  of 
the  eyes  of  little  children — if  there  is 
any  clearer  revelation  granted  to  us  of 
what  is  unearthly  in  the  sense  of  di- 
vinity brought  close,  I  do  not  know  it. 
Each  time  my  spirit  is  arrested  by  sur- 
prise, then  filled  with  wondering  joy  as 
I  meet  that  strange  open  look,  so  stain- 
less, accepting  the  universe  as  its  right- 
ful toy,  and,  as  with  the  bird  and  flower, 
saying  Yes  to  life  as  though  there  could 
not  possibly  exist  a  No. 

The  wildflower  too:  you  recall  once 
— it  was  above  Igls  when  the  Tyrolean 
snows  were  melting — how  we  found  a 
sudden  gentian  on  the  dead,  pale  grass? 
The  sliding  snows  had  left  the  coarse 
tufts  stroked  all  one  way,  white  and 
ugly,  thickly  streaked  with  mud,  no 
single  blade  with  any  sign  of  life  or 
greenness  yet,  when  we  came  upon 
that  star  of  concentrated  beauty,  more 
blue  than  the  blue  sky  overhead,  the 
[159] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

whole  passion  of  the  earth  in  each 
pointed  petal.  A  distant  avalanche, 
as  though  the  hills  were  settling,  the 
bustle  of  the  torrent,  the  wind  in  the 
pines  and  larches,  only  marked  by  con- 
trast the  incredible  stillness  of  the 
heights — then,  suddenly,  this  star  of 
blue  blazing  among  the  desolation.  I 
recall  your  cry  and  my  own — wonder, 
joy,  as  of  something  unearthly — that 
took  us  by  surprise. 

In  these  three,  certainly,  lay  the 
authentic  thrill  I  speak  of;  while  it 
lasts,  the  actual  moment  seems  but  a 
pedestal  from  which  the  eyes  of  the 
heart  look  into  Heaven,  a  pedestal 
from  which  the  soul  leaps  out  into  the 
surrounding  garden  of  limitless  possi- 
bilities which  are  its  birthright,  and 
immediately  accessible.  And  that,  in- 
deed, is  the  essential  meaning  of  the 
thrill — that  Heaven  is  here  and  now. 
The  gates  of  ivory  are  very  tiny; 
[160] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Beauty  sounds  the  elfin  horns  that 
opens  them;  smaller  than  the  eye  of  a 
needle  is  that  opening — upon  the  dia- 
mond point  of  the  thrill  you  flash  within, 
and  the  Garden  of  Eternity  is  yours  for 
ever — now. 

I  am  writing  this  to  you,  because  I 
know  you  listen  with  your  heart,  not 
with  your  nerves;  and  the  garden  that 
I  write  about  you  know  now  better 
than  I  do  myself.  I  have  but  tasted  it, 
you  dwell  therein,  unaged,  unageing. 
And  so  we  share  the  flowers;  we  know 
the  light,  the  fragrance  and  the  birds 
we  know  together.  .  .  .  They  tell  me 
— even  our  mother  says  it  sometimes 
with  a  sigh — that  you  are  far  away, 
not  understanding  that  we  have  but 
recovered  the  garden  of  our  early 
childhood,  you  permanently,  I  when- 
ever the  thrill  opens  the  happy  gates. 
You  are  as  near  to  me  as  that.  Our 
love  was  forged  inside  those  ivory  gates 
[161] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

that  guard  that  childhood  state,  facing 
four  ways,  and  if  I  wandered  outside  a- 
while,  puzzled  and  lonely,  the  thrill  of 
beauty  has  led  me  back  again,  and  I, 
have  found  your  love  unchanged,  im- 
aged, still  growing  in  the  garden  of  our 
earliest  memories.  I  did  but  lose  my 
way  for  a  time.  .  .  . 

That  childhood  state  must  be  amaz- 
ingly close  to  God,  I  suppose,  for 
though  no  child  is  consciously  aware 
of  beauty,  its  whole  being  cries  Yes 
to  the  universe  and  life  as  naturally 
and  instinctively  as  a  flower  turns  to 
the  sun.  The  universe  lies  in  its  overall 
pocket  of  alpaca,  and  beauty  only 
becomes  a  thing  apart  when  the  grow- 
ing consciousness,  hearing  the  world 
cry  No,  steps  through  the  gates  to  en- 
quire and  cannot  find  the  entrance  any 
more.  Beauty  then  becomes  a  sign- 
post showing  the  way  home  again. 
Baudelaire,  of  course,  meant  God  and 
[162] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

Heaven,  instead  of  "genius"  when  he 
said,  "Le  genie  n'est  que  1'enfance 
retrouvee  &  volonte.  ..." 

And  so  when  I  write  to  you,  I  find 
myself  again  within  the  garden  of  our 
childhood,  that  English  garden  where 
our  love  shared  all  the  light  and  frag- 
rance and  flowers  of  the  world  together. 
"Time's  but  a  golden  wind  that  shakes 
the  grass,"  and  since  my  thought  is 
with  you,  you  are  with  me  now  .  .  . 
and  now  means  always  or  it  means 
nothing. 

So  these  relationships  are  real  still 
among  a  thousand  shadows.  Your 
beauty  was  truth,  hers  was  unselfish 
love.  The  important  thing  is  to  know 
you  still  live,  not  with  regret  and 
selfish  grief,  but  with  that  joy  and  sure 
conviction  which  makes  the  so-called 
separation  a  temporary  test,  perhaps, 
but  never  a  final  blow.  What  are  the 
few  years  of  separation  compared  to 
[163] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

this  certainty  of  co-operation  in  eter- 
nity? We  live  but  a  few  years  together 
in  the  flesh,  yet  if  those  few  are  lived 
with  beauty  and  beautifully,  the  tie  is 
unalterably  forged  which  fastens  us  lov- 
ingly together  for  ever.  Where,  how, 
under  what  precise  conditions  it  were 
idle  to  enquire  and  unnecessary — the 
wrong  way  too.  Our  only  knowledge 
(in  the  scientific  sense)  comes  to  us 
through  our  earthly  senses.  To  fore- 
cast our  future  life,  constructing  it  of 
necessity  upon  this  earthly  sensory 
experience,  is  an  occupation  for  those 
who  have  neither  faith  nor  imagination. 
All  such  "heavens"  are  but  clumsy 
idealizations  of  the  present — "Happy 
Hunting  Grounds"  in  various  forms: 
whereas  we  know  that  if  we  lived 
beauty  together,  we  shall  live  it  always 
— "afterwards,"  as  our  poor  time-ridden 
language  phrases  it.  For  Beauty,  once 
known,  cannot  exclude  us.  We  co- 
[164] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

operated  with  the  Power  that  makes 
the  universe  alive. 

And,  knowing  this,  I  do  not  ask  for 
your  "return,"  or  for  any  so-called 
evidence  that  you  survive.  In  beauty 
you  both  live  now  with  less  hampered 
hands,  less  troubled  breath,  and  I  am 
glad. 

Why  should  you  come,  indeed, 
through  the  gutter  of  my  worn,  fa- 
miliar, personal  desires,  when  the  open 
channel  of  beauty  lies  ever  at  the  flood 
for  you  to  use?  Coming  in  this  way, 
you  come,  besides,  for  many,  not  for  me 
alone,  since  behind  every  thrill  of  beau- 
ty stand  the  countless  brave  souls  who 
lived  it  in  their  lives.  They  have 
entered  the  mighty  rhythm  that  floats 
the  spiral  nebulae  in  space,  as  it  turns 
the  little  aspiring  Nautilus  in  the  depths 
of  the  sea.  Having  once  felt  this  im- 
personal worship  which  is  love  of  beau- 
ty, they  are  linked  to  the  power  that 
[165] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

drives  the  universe  towards  perfection, 
the  power  that  knocks  in  a  million  un- 
advertised  forms  at  every  human  heart: 
and  that  is  God. 

With  that  beneficent  power  you  co- 
operate. I  ask  no  other  test.  I  crave  no 
evidence  that  you  self-ish-ly  remember 
me.  In  the  body  we  did  not  know  so 
closely.  To  see  into  your  physical  eyes, 
and  touch  your  hand,  and  hear  your 
voice — these  were  but  intermediary 
methods,  symbols,  at  the  best.  For  you 
I  never  saw  nor  touched  nor  heard.  I 
felt  you — in  my  heart.  The  closest  in- 
timacy we  knew  was  when  together  we 
shared  one  moment  of  the  same  beau- 
ty; no  other  intimacy  approaches  the 
reality  of  that;  it  is  now  strengthened 
to  a  degree  unrealized  before.  For  me 
that  is  enough.  I  have  that  faith,  that 
certainty,  that  knowledge.  Should  you 
come  to  me  otherwise  I  must  disown 
you.  Should  you  stammer  through 
[166] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

another's  earthly  lips  that  you  now 
enjoy  a  mere  idealized  repetition  of 
your  physical  limitations,  I  should 
know  my  love,  my  memory,  my  hope 
degraded,  nay,  my  very  faith  destroyed. 

To  summon  you  in  that  way  makes 
me  shudder.  It  would  be  to  limit  your 
larger  uses,  your  wider  mission,  merely 
to  numb  a  selfish  grief  born  of  a  faith- 
less misunderstanding. 

Come  to  me  instead — or,  rather,  stay, 
since  you  have  never  left — be  with  me 
still  in  the  wonder  of  dawn  and  twi- 
light, in  the  yearning  desire  of  inarti- 
culate black  night,  in  the  wind,  the  sun- 
shine, and  the  rain.  It  is  then  that  I 
am  nearest  to  you  and  to  your  benefi- 
cent activity,  for  the  same  elemental 
rhythm  of  Beauty  includes  us  both.  The 
best  and  highest  of  you  are  there;  I 
want  no  lesser  assurance,  no  broken 
personal  revelation.  Eternal  beauty 
brings  you  with  an  intimacy  unknown, 
[167] 


THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL 

impossible,  indeed,  to  partial  disclosure. 
I  should  abhor  a  halting  masquerade,  a 
stammering  message  less  intelligible 
even  than  our  intercourse  of  the  body. 

Come,  then!*  Be  with  me,  your 
truth  and  Marion's  tenderness  linked 
together  with  what  is  noblest  in  myself. 
Be  with  me  in  the  simple  loveliness  of 
an  English  garden  where  you  and  I,  as 
boys  together,  first  heard  that  voice  of 
wonder,  and  knew  the  Presence  walk- 
ing with  us  among  the  growing  leaves. 


THE  END 


[168] 


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